Bill Would Add Surveillance Cameras to Korea’s Operating Rooms
Pretty soon there are going to be surveillance cameras everywhere. If this bill passes you won’t even be able to get a colonoscopy without a camera looking up your rear end:
Doctors are strongly protesting a contentious bill that will mandate the installation of surveillance cameras in operating rooms as a part of measures to prevent medical malpractice.
Korea Times
Citing the possibility of the surveillance affecting doctors’ surgical procedures and the leakage of video recordings, the nation’s largest doctors’ group said it will seek a constitutional petition if the bill is approved.
Their protest came after the National Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee passed the revision bill to the Medical Service Act, Monday. The Assembly plans to approve it at a plenary session on Wednesday.
According to the bill, hospitals must video-record medical procedures upon the patient’s or guardian’s request when an operation is conducted while the patient is unconscious such as under anesthesia. They have to save the recording for more than 30 days for future reference in case of legal disputes, and viewing the recording will be allowed upon request by an investigative body or a court, or when the patient and the hospital agree.
You can read more at the link.
@GIKorea
Because of recent cases where doctors had unqualified hospital employees do surgery for them resulting in injuries and in some cases death, the purpose of those cameras is to prevent such malpractice.
This is in no way a Big Brother type move.
The reason that the doctors are opposing is most probably because they want to continue on with their old ways without having to worry about being penalized or getting hit with a malpractice suit.
That bill is defined precisely to cause doctors and hospitals to need medical malpractice insurance.
And that will not eliminate malpractice, injury, or deaths; but it will make a certain class of lawyers very wealthy and require medical care ro become every bit as expensive as it is in rhe US.
And then!!! Leftist politicians will create commissions, additional oversight bureaucracy, and tens of thousands of well-paid sinecures for their friends.
Good job Korea!!
setnaffa,
Unlike the US, Korea has semi-universal health care.
Which means Koreans can get affordable health care and if they wish they are free to take out extra health insurance sold by insurance companies.
This is the reason why a lot of Koreans with Green Cards come to Korea for treatment. since their records haven’t been deleted. (It will be when they receive US citizenship)
Besides doctors in Korea have been given a free hand, were largely immune from malpractice suits and could avoid getting their licenses revoked if they commit a malpractice or a crime thanks to lobbying from the KMA.
Some accountability here won’t be too bad.
Because of recent cases where doctors had unqualified hospital employees do surgery for them resulting in injuries and in some cases death, the purpose of those cameras is to prevent such malpractice.
That is very concerning, but if they were not able to screen better than that letting people into the OR during surgery, I’m not sure how a camera would help. Surgeons and staff are covered from head to toe in the OR during surgery, it would be really difficult to identify them, definitively.
Wouldn’t the smart thing to do be to screen BEFORE they go into the OR?
They could put their cameras where they gown up.
Pervert!
Frankly, this is all just as I said. Which party do the lawyers support? They want some of that sweet malpractice suit money. And the doctors and hospitals will be forced to buy insurance against that.
Either everything gets more expensive or it Cloward-Pivens Korean Medicine backwards 500 years (ie, like the Nation Health Service in the UK). Great Stuff! if you can just hold off that emergency surgery for a couple weeks…
LOL McGeehee. 😆
liz,
With the exception of the large hospitals run by the universities, big corporations, and the government, the small and medium sized hospitals are run by the doctors themselves.
Since they are running their own show, asking them to ‘screen’ before anyone enters the operating room is like giving a cat a bowl of cat food and asking it to not eat it.