South Korean medical doctor Lee Cook-Jong, who carried out surgery on gunshot wound sustained by a North Korean soldier, spoke at the patient briefing about the difficulties and obstacles that the trauma care doctors have to experience at Ajou Hospital in Suwon on 14th of November.
His successful surgery and urgent plea to improve the current medial system in South Korea gathered the attention of the 270 thousand people, leading to the promise of the government to provide increased budget for the medical area from the following years.
However, the recent interviews with Doctor Lee suggests that he is not at all delighted about the government’s decision to increase medical fund. A famous South Korean accusatory program “그것이 알고 싶다” aired the miserable situations occurring in the trauma centers, corrupt use of authorities and corresponding deaths due to the loss of so called “golden time” to treat the patients.
In 101 pages of his memorandum, Doctor Lee wrote: “The night was filled with the mourning and screams of the patients. They brought death to me and shed blood in front of me. The lives of those people diminished through the scattered bones and trampled skins.” “Today, one of my younger men came to me and said “I don’t have courage to withstand the burden of working in trauma center. I am so sorry but I want to quit.” I did not have any words to say.” These quotes express the misery and insufferable amount of stress that doctors in trauma care had to endure through.
Doctor Lee is skeptical towards the government’s decision to increase the budget for trauma care, pointing the fact that his hope will reject him once again, as it did in the 2011. He emphasized the fact that once again, the “budget will be shared among the authorities and will never reach a doctor like him.” He also added about the recent issues of the medical helicopter stating that he had been riding helicopters without life insurances and proper communication means for more than 7 years. He pled to offer doctor helicopters to government and the only thing left to him was 7 years of waiting and his debt accumulated from the use of private alternative vehicles.