Korean epilepsy patients are traveling abroad to undergo surgery due to the government’s lack of support, a lawmaker said.
Rep. In Jae-keun of the Democratic Party released the analysis of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s data on epilepsy patients.
Epilepsy is the No. 2 cause of death among neurological diseases. The sudden death rate of epilepsy patients is about 10 times higher than that of the general population. Among young epilepsy patients aged between 20 and 45, the sudden death rate is about 27 times higher.
However, 70 percent of epilepsy patients can stop seizing with medications, and the rest 30 percent can improve their symptoms through appropriate treatment.
Still, Korea is not a good place to live for epilepsy patients. Epilepsy patients registered as disabled have significantly lower marks in depression, anxiety disorder, early death caused by suicide, and unemployment, compared to the average of all disabled.
The lawmaker argued that the poor health indicators of epilepsy patients resulted from the government’s insufficient support.
According to the health ministry’s data, Korea is estimated to have around 360,000 epilepsy patients.
Among them, 44,670 suffer from serious, intractable epilepsy experiencing at least one seizure per month even after taking three or more anticonvulsants. About 37,990 patients need surgery, In said.
Approximately 1,000 epilepsy patients are waiting for surgery after examinations, including video electroencephalograph (EEG).
The problem is that the supply of epilepsy surgery fails to meet the demand in Korea.
In 2021, hospitals performed only 145 epilepsy surgery in Korea.
Annually, the number of epilepsy surgery remains below 200 on average.
As 37,990 patients need surgery, it takes about 260 years for them to get surgery, based on the number of surgeries in 2021.
Narrowing the target to 1,000 patients waiting for surgery, it takes 6.7 years to get surgery in Korea.
The nation’s insufficient epilepsy surgery stemmed from the lack of hospitals and equipment.
Only nine surgeons at six hospitals can perform epilepsy surgery in Korea.
Epilepsy surgery can be done in two ways – using the surgeon’s hands only and using a robot. Robotic surgery outcomes are much better in reducing side effects, surgery speed, and boosting the surgical effect.
However, Korea has only two surgical robots for epilepsy.
“Experts noted that many Korean epilepsy patients are going abroad, including Japan, for tests and surgeries,” In said.
Last year, the health ministry’s budget for dementia exceeded 200 billion won, while that for epilepsy was only about 700 million won, according to In.
Although the number of epilepsy patients is about half that of dementia patients, he said the budget for epilepsy was only one-300th.
In quoted epilepsy experts as saying that a 5 billion won support from the government could greatly reduce the pain of Korean patients and their families.
Although the former Moon Jae-in government spent a budget to equip one magnetoencephalography (MEG) and one surgical robot at each hospital in 2020, state support is still lacking, he added.