[Editorial] Health Inequality Needs Structural Solution
One of the more common salutations you hear on Lunar New Year’s is to wish someone good health. People want to be healthy, even if they are poor. The “health gap” between classes, geographical locations, and education as reported in a special series by the Hankyoreh is shocking.
A woman with an elementary school education is 1.8 times as likely to give birth to low birth-weight baby than a university graduate, and irregular workers are far more likely to have to deal with disease and industrial accidents than people with regular jobs. People in certain positions do not have the time to look after the babies they are carrying or their health. The standardized mortality rate (SMR) in Seoul neighborhoods north of the Han River is 30 percent higher than those to the south. Surely that relates to the fact that there are only 1/3 the hospitals or clinics for every 10,000 people.
That there is “health inequality” resulting from socioeconomic status is nothing new. In the advanced countries of the world “health equality” is a key policy issue, but in our case scholarly discussion of the issue is still in its infancy. All the government has done is add the declarative phrase “securing equal health” in its “National Comprehensive Health Promotion Plan” at the end of last year. The responsible officials themselves confess that there is no index by which to measure health equality, and that there are no fundamental plans. That is a disgrace.
Policy begins in accurate perception of a given problem. The government quickly needs to accurately ascertain the situation and formulate a strict gauge for measuring the inequality. It took European countries more than 10 years to collect basic data on the causes of the inequality and form plans to address the problem. We should not wait around and be envious of preparation, plans, and implementation of policy that goes beyond a single government’s time in office.
The key factor is inequality in income. Poverty brings on disease, and disease makes it less likely someone is going to escape poverty. That is why in advanced nations budgets for health policy are focus on reducing income disparity and poverty. Policy that is not funded is like a meaningless chant. You wonder if the government is serious, because government offices related to economic affairs are missing from the government-wide discussion that is late in coming as it is. The standard for health policy has to be basic public “need,” not consumer “purchasing power.” There has to be a thorough reconsideration of policy that seeks to give Korea “advanced medical services” by focusing on opening the market and the pursuit of profit.
The Hankyoreh, 28 January 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]