| A medical equipment salesman enters the operating room at a hospital in Busan in this video footage taken in May. The patient died shortly after undergoing shoulder surgery by this unlicensed person instead of surgeon. / Yonhap |
By Lee Suh-yoon
Starting next month, a Gyeonggi provincial government-operated medical facility will install closed circuit (CCTV) surveillance cameras inside operating rooms to more closely check on possible medical malpractice and abuse of anesthetized patients.
It is yet to be seen whether the initiative will encourage other hospitals to follow suit amid growing public calls for the cameras following cases of botched operations by unlicensed employees or ghost doctors and sexual harassment of patients under anesthesia, as well as disputes over malpractice.
Ansung Hospital, located in southern Gyeonggi Province, will start recording with cameras Oct. 1. Under this new system, surgeries will be recorded with the patient's consent and the clips will be stored for up to 30 days.
This is the first time for a CCTV monitoring system to be installed in a public medical institution.
After a test-run, five other medical facilities run by the provincial government in Suwon, Uijeongbu, Paju, Icheon and Pocheon will follow suit by 2019, according to the local government.
"The operating room is completely sealed off from the outside and the surgery takes place while the patient is unconscious," Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-Myung said in an SNS post, Sunday. "Cases of human rights abuse in such situations make other patients frustrated and worried."
The local government will also set aside 44 million won ($39,000) of its budget to purchase and install the CCTV systems at the medical centers.
Supporters of the move say it is an appropriate response to a recent string of medical "accidents" and abuses in operating theaters.
"We hope this new system in Gyeonggi Province's medical centers becomes a spark for similar initiatives in all medical institutions across the nation," the Korea Alliance of Patients Organizations said in a recent statement.
"The National Assembly should pass laws making it mandatory to record surgical procedures unless the patient says no. Such a law should also include measures to prevent arbitrary viewing or manipulation of the stored video clips, through a proper management and auditing system."
Doctors' groups, however, are uneasy about installing CCTVs in operating rooms, calling it "a breach of privacy."
"There are doctors who don't like having their faces filmed at work, especially when the video is later stored somewhere," Jeong Seong-gyoon, spokesman for the Korean Medical Association, said in a phone interview with The Korea Times. "If the video is leaked, it could also mean a serious breach of privacy for the patient."
Making it mandatory to film operations would also brand doctors as potential criminals, Jeong added.
"We think the better way to prevent unlawful and immoral operations is having a separate watchdog to monitor medical procedures," he said.
Some lawmakers have submitted bills to set up such a law, but their attempts have been blocked by the opposition from doctors' groups.
Recently it was reported that a patient died at a hospital in Busan after shoulder surgery in May. It was found the patient was operated on by a salesman from the hospital's medical equipment supplier instead of a surgeon.