In the aftermath of the death of a nurse at Asan Medical Center due to stroke, the Ministry of Health and Welfare is preparing comprehensive essential healthcare measures, including the reform of regional cardio-cerebrovascular centers.
The plan calls for, among others, bolstering the capacities of these regional centers, which have played a lesser role than the project to prevent cardio-cerebrovascular diseases, and designating the central cardio-cerebrovascular disease center that will lead regional centers, a senior ministry official said Tuesday.
Kim Han-sook, director of the ministry’s Disease Policy Division, explained these and other points of the regional centers to reporters.
The ministry has been promoting provincial general hospitals into regional cardio-cerebrovascular centers to narrow the regional medical gap by providing emergency care for patients and helping with their early rehabilitation.
Accordingly, the ministry designated 11 provincial hospitals as regional cardio-cerebrovascular centers from 2008 to 2012. The 11 institutions are Kangwon National University Hospital, Kyungpook National University Hospital, Jeju National University Hospital, Chungbuk National University Hospital, Gyeongsang University Hospital, Chonnam National University Hospital, Dong-A University Hospital, Chungnam National University Hospital, Wonkwang University Hospital, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, and Inha University Hospital. It also designated Andong Medical Group Hospital in 2017, Ulsan University Hospital in 2018, and Sun Chun Hyang University Cheonan Hospital in 2022, increasing the total to 14.
The government provides smaller financial support for regional cardio-cerebrovascular centers than other regional disease centers.
In the early phase of the project, it provided 350 million won ($255,000) for disease prevention, and 300 million won for operational costs per center. However, it stopped providing subsidies for operating professional treatment systems after a certain period of designation. Now only three of the 14 hospitals receive it.
That's because the ministry started the project, thinking the government should support disease prevention and management, but pertinent hospitals should finance the establishment of the professional treatment system, Kim said.
However, an increasing number of experts think cardio-cerebrovascular diseases should be subject to essential healthcare, forcing the ministry to move toward the “Regional Cardio-cerebrovascular Disease Center Plan 2.0” by including greater policy support in the plan.
“Eleven of 14 centers are not receiving support for operating the professional treatment system,” she said. “Besides, as essential healthcare is emerging as a problem, various problems appeared at regional centers, such as the lack of doctors who respond to acute emergencies and the shortage of medical residents, increasing the burden of night duty.”
Although subsidies for operating professional treatment systems could not replenish staff immediately, some increases in night-duty allowances will help boost their morale, Kim said.
The ministry has set aside 3.95 billion won to expand subsidies for operational costs.
The National Assembly should determine budget-related issues, but we regard the subsidy as urgent spending (related to expanding essential healthcare),” Kim said, vowing to do all to win the related budget.
The reform of regional cardio-cerebrovascular centers will likely be included in the comprehensive measures for essential healthcare prepared by the ministry with intensive efforts.
“Although contents related to regional cardio-cerebrovascular centers will not be specified in great detail in the comprehensive plan, a more improved version of the existing plan will be included in it,” Kim said. “We will include more detailed content in a separate package exclusively coping with cardio-cerebrovascular diseases next year.”
If the ministry manages to include cardio-cerebrovascular center-related content in the comprehensive essential healthcare plan, it will start a detailed discussion through various channels with the medical community later, Kim added.
“We also should designate central cardio-cerebrovascular center by revising related laws and think about ways to designate it,” she said. “Starting with providing subsidies for the operational costs of the professional treatment system, we will enter into the centers’ reform in earnest.”