[김용의 헬스앤]
The thick glass wall that blocked the visiting room of the nursing hospital is expected to disappear soon. The quarantine authorities are considering ways to allow face-to-face visits, focusing on nursing hospitals with excellent environments and facilities. This is because the recent corona epidemic has stabilized and the 4th vaccination rate (70.7%) in hospitals and nursing facilities is high. Sooner or later, grandparents in nursing homes will be able to hold hands and meet. In response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the government has been restricting face-to-face visits to facilities susceptible to infection, such as nursing hospitals and facilities, since the end of July.
A nursing hospital facility is a typical ‘tragedy’ space in the age of Corona. It is an infection-prone facility recognized by the quarantine authorities. More than half of the COVID-19 deaths occurred here. It is not empty words to say that the nursing hospital facility is a modern version of Goryeojang. When it is decided to go to a nursing hospital, the house becomes depressed. The patient reluctantly walks away with tears in his eyes, and the children repeat “I’m sorry” over and over.
In fact, access to nursing homes or nursing homes, which everyone is reluctant to, can be greatly reduced. Of the approximately 1 million elderly who require medical assistance, 85% can rehabilitate at home as long as they provide care services such as nursing care and meals. However, more than half of them have been in hospital for more than six months. This is because family members cannot afford to care for them, and the government and local governments have pretty much given up on care services.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare decided that next year’s long-term care insurance premium rate would be 12.81% of the health insurance premium at the Long-Term Care Committee on the 24th. The premium-to-income ratio will increase from 0.86% this year to 0.91% next year. The average monthly insurance premium per household will rise from 15,076 won to 15,974 won this year.
Long-term care insurance is a social insurance system that supports nursing and housework activities for the elderly who are unable to live alone due to old age or illness. Those over 65 and those with dementia or cerebrovascular disease are targeted. If you get a grade 1 or 2 after passing the screening, you can enter a facility such as a nursing home. Grades 3-5 receive home care services.
Even if your health is bad enough to enter a ‘nursing home’, you can enter a ‘nursing hospital’ freely. Since a long-term care hospital is a medical institution, health insurance, not long-term care insurance, supports medical expenses. You can receive health insurance benefits even if you don’t need a level 1 or 2 to enter a nursing home, so it is ‘welcome’ from the point of view of a nursing hospital that has to make a profit. Even if you do not need to be admitted to a nursing hospital, you cannot take care of yourself at home, so you are in hospital.
It’s not just grandparents and elderly people with dementia who are admitted to nursing hospitals. There are not a few ‘young’ patients in their 40s and 60s. They are almost sane people. A stroke (cerebral infarction – brain haemorrhage) is a case where one body is paralyzed or a person suffers a speech disorder due to poor vision. They have no one to look after them at home, so they turn to nursing homes. These days, middle age is the age of ‘flesh’. How frustrating is it that these people are ‘stuck’ in a nursing home? Not only corona, but also because it’s a facility open to respiratory diseases, so I’m even scared. The family can’t even hold hands together and barely speak through the glass walls.
There is a stroke patient (paralysis) who walks the road with an uncomfortable body and burns the will to rehabilitate. it’s great Even if it’s hard, I don’t stop exercising. Communicate with the doctor often and focus on rehabilitation treatment. If you have a strong will to recover and have someone to help you when you need it, you can rehabilitate yourself at home. They live alone without the burden of care from their family members and only receive the support of a carer.
The government and local governments should not delay caring for family members alone, but should further strengthen the care services provided at home. Even people in their 40s and 60s should pay attention to candidates who take care of themselves in every election. Nursing may come to me soon, not in the distant future. When that time comes, I also have to move to the nursing hospital with tears in my eyes. Every time an infectious disease spreads, you spend days trembling with fear.
