ed Role of public hospitals

All concerned parties need to negotiate wise solutions

South Gyeongsang Province closed Jinju Medical Center (JMC) Wednesday, after more than three months of bickering over the fate of the 103-year-old public hospital. JMC is the first public health care provider to have been closed by a local government.

Governor Hong Joon-pyo, who spearheaded the hospital’s closure, told reporters that he had no alternative but to shut the medical center, given its outstanding debts of nearly 28 billion won and 4-6 billion won in annual losses. He added that the provincial government failed to find ways of normalizing the hospital because of its labor union that is preoccupied with protecting vested interests without making any self-rescue efforts.

It’s quite regrettable that the provincial government reached such a conclusion despite strong protests from its unionized workers, civic groups and opposition parties and the importance of public hospitals in our society. We wish rumors that Hong, a former three-term lawmaker, is seeking to emerge as an icon for conservatives by pressing ahead with the hospital’s closure were not true.

While it’s true that profitability should not be the only yardstick, JMC’s labor union deserves blame in many respects though it may be disputable to call the hospital a safe haven for entrenched unionists. The union reportedly remained unresponsive to demands to improve management conditions on 47 occasions and even turned down pleas to diagnose the hospital’s management status. The result was that its revenue from medical operations last year ― 13.6 billion won ― managed to cover only personnel expenses, causing the JMC to suffer a 6.2 billion won deficit in 2012.

The union refutes these claims, saying that the hospital has frozen wages over the last six years and that a number of staffers quit under a voluntary resignation scheme. Unionized workers also blamed the hospital’s management for its bloated debt level, noting that much of it was incurred from the hospital’s mistaken relocation in 2008.

The shutdown of JMC carries great importance in that it will set an example for 33 other public medical centers across the country, most of which are hemorrhaging cash. As of the end of 2011, the combined debt of the nation’s 34 public medical centers amounted to 514 billion won. In fact, it’s difficult for public hospitals to make profits because they must perform the basic functions of providing health care services for the poor and playing crucial public health roles in the event of outbreaks of infectious diseases.

But these should not be an excuse for public hospitals to continue to be complacent and subsistent on taxpayers’ money. The JMC’s case will serve as a good occasion to discuss what should be the role of public health care in our society. And all the concerned parties need not rush to make a final decision on the fate of the hospital but negotiate to reach wise solutions.