health care, abroad

[arisrabkin]

Amnesty International has [finally!] put out a report about health care in North KoreaThere's a lot of interesting content in it. The report is nominally about health care, but the first half of it is really about food. There isn't enough of it. The report has a lot of details and personal narratives about how bad things are. They're very bad. And

Comments

[willworker]

"Apparently, patients are responsible for buying all their own medicines." The same is true here, it's just that our surgeons won't *do* your surgery if you can't afford anesthetics (unless it's an emergency, in which case you're covered by EMTALA, although you'll be chased by bill collectors after your surgery is complete).

Steve

[arisrabkin]

I'm not bothered by having the patient, in the end, paying for services. I'm appalled that the NK economy has come so completely un-stuck that patients are responsible for getting the stuff themselves before the operation, and that the hospitals aren't able to do treat-first pay-later.

When do you think was the last time that an American hospital said "if you can't pay up front, we'll do the operation without anesthesia?" Was it in the 20th century?

[proudduckling]

No, because now anesthesia is just factored into the cost of the surgery. And almost any major surgery you have to pay for, or at least arrange payment for, up front.

[arisrabkin]

This isn't quite right. If it's an emergency, they operate first and bill later. (And are obliged by law to do so.)

But I wasn't surprised that North Korean hospitals requirespatients to pay for anesthesia. Patients everywhere and always have had to pay, directly or indirectly. My surprise is that their economy has come so completely unraveled that hospitals don't have anesthetics in stock, and have to send patients down to a physical marketplace to buy it.