More than 60 percent of local cancer patients used tertiary hospitals, and 37 percent of them received treatment at one of the five largest hospitals in Korea, government data showed.
Independent Rep. Lee Yong-ho of the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee released the National Health Insurance Service’s data on the number of cancer patients by cancer type compiled from 2015 to August 2020.
According to Lee, 1.72 million cancer patients used medical institutions during the cited period, and 61.8 percent of them, or 1.07 million, went to tertiary hospitals.
As of the end of 2019, the nation had 69,118 medical institutions, and only 42 of them are tertiary hospitals accounting for only 0.06 percent.
Among the tertiary hospitals, 385,243 patients visited one of the five largest hospitals, the so-called Big Five. They accounted for 37 percent of cancer patients at tertiary hospitals, and 22.2 percent of the total cancer patients.
“Forty-two tertiary hospitals are taking care of 62 percent of all cancer patients. Among the 42, the Big Five alone are taking 37 percent of them,” Lee said.
If the concentration of patients at large hospitals continues, it will make it difficult for urgent cancer patients to receive timely treatment, he warned.
“The nation should improve the medical delivery system quickly so that primary and secondary institutions could accurately triage cancer patients with light symptoms from those with serious ones and let tertiary hospitals care high risk, rare disease, end-stage cancer patients,” Lee emphasized.
Although the health and welfare ministry announced measures in September to improve the medical delivery system in the short term, using reimbursement and subsidies rather than revising the law to allow doctors to refuse patient care will not produce long-term effects, he went on to say.
To relieve the overcrowding in large hospitals, medical institutions at each level should play their role clearly, and the authorities should manage medical service quality at primary and secondary institutions, he added.