By Kim Rahn
Yonsei University-affiliated Severance Hospital in Seoul, widely regarded as a top-of-the-line medical facility, has received an unexpected grade two rating for stomach cancer surgery in a hospital review.
It was the only one to receive the downgrade among the top five hospitals.
The Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service released the death rates of patients receiving surgery for stomach, colon and liver cancer at each hospital in 2010, Tuesday.
It was the first time for the agency to evaluate and make public 320 hospitals’ surgery results for the three types of cancer that strike Koreans the most.
The agency compared the “actual death rate,” by which patients died within 30 days after surgery, and the “expected death rate,” which is the chance of patients dying under normal conditions.
If the actual death rate was lower than the expected rate, the hospital was listed as grade one, and if it was higher, the hospital was rated grade two.
About 17 percent of hospitals studied were categorized in the top tier for all three cancers, including four of the “big five” general hospitals — Seoul National University Hospital, Asan Medical Center, Samsung Medical Center and Catholic University’s Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital.
Of the big five, the Severance Hospital was the only exception — it failed to achieve the top ranking for stomach cancer. The hospital’s actual death rate was about 1 percent, with 12 among 1,220 stomach cancer patients dying, while the average ratio was 0.92 percent.
Gangnam Severance Hospital was also listed a grade two for stomach and colon cancer surgeries.
The Severance Hospital is dissatisfied with the evaluation, saying the high death rate was because the hospital dealt with more seriously ill patients that other hospitals refused to treat.
“Many of our patients were terminal. They knew they had a very low chance of surviving even though they had the surgery but asked us to perform it; and we actively accepted their plea unlike other hospitals,” a Severance Hospital official said.
“We worry the evaluation may make patients distrust doctors’ ability here and discourage surgeons. We think the agency should evaluate hospitals based on more comprehensive aspects, not just on the death rate,” he said.
The Korean Hospital Association also expressed concern over the evaluation results’ disclosure. “As the results were reported with the extreme expression of death rate after surgery, the surgery results at hospitals listed as grade two may be misunderstood as medical malpractice. It may cause fear and other side effects among the public,” it said in a statement.
For colon and liver cancer, the actual death rate was 1.63 percent and 1.88 percent on average, respectively.
By region, 62.7 percent of hospitals rated grade one for all three types of cancer surgery were clustered in Seoul and the nearby metropolitan area.