Korean hospital culture undergoing major surgery

By Jung Min-ho

Major hospitals across Korea are busy educating their employees about a new anti-graft law, which is bringing profound changes not only to some of their practices but also to the whole culture of the nation’s medical sector.

The Kim Young-ran Act, which came into force Wednesday, bans two things ― receiving gifts worth more than a certain amount of money, and complying with unfair requests. For the latter charge, violators could face a sentence of up to two years or a fine of up to 20 million won ($18,000).

Along with officials at the government, its agencies and media outlets, employees at public and private schools, and medical staff at university hospitals, are subject to the law.

“All hospital employees attended a special lecture about the law last week,” a public relations official at Severance Hospital, affiliated with Yonsei University, told The Korea Times. “More detailed guidelines will be drawn up and distributed soon.”

It is no secret that asking to be moved to the front of the line for a medical procedure was a common practice in Korea’s hospitals for a long time, he said. To get such favors, which were not subject to any regulation before the law, many people used their personal relationships. But they can no longer do that.

“Employees have been warned that if they are caught violating the law these days, they may set precedents for future cases,” the official said. “No one wants that, and everyone is very cautious.”

A high-ranking official at the Korean Nurses Association said he was asked for such favors from time to time.

“Now I have a legal reason to turn down such requests, which is a good thing,” said the official, who refused to be named. “Because I know many people in the hospitals, some people asked me to help them secure rooms at certain hospitals or help move them up the waiting list for care.”

Korean society was already heading in the direction of becoming more transparent and striving to be fair, and the law is expected to accelerate the change, he noted.

“Some hospitals have already set up systems, according to which patients can see where they are on the waiting lists,” he said. “The law will make sure that no one gets their place in line and they are moved back unfairly.”

Not all medical workers are subject to the law. Those who do not have any affiliation with schools are free from it. However, given that most leading doctors work for universities as teachers or researchers, the law is expected to have a major impact on the nation’s hospital culture.

Without exception, all employees of hospitals founded by universities such as Seoul National University and Yonsei Severance hospitals are subject to the law regardless of their positions.

The law is also expected to change “rebate culture,” which harms fair competition in Korea’s pharmaceutical industry. For a long time, the culture was pervasive. Just last month, six former and current executives of Novartis Korea were indicted on charges of offering kickbacks to doctors for years in return for prescribing its products.

With the law banning such practices, many industry people are already sensing a change.

“I believe it is a good change,” an executive at a major pharmaceutical firm, said. “It could be a bad change for companies that rely heavily on sales without competitive products.

“I hope that the law will correct many of the bad practices in the drug industry. The biggest winners, then, will be consumers.”