[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, centering 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 nursing hospitals and facilities is high. Sooner or later, a grandmother in a nursing hospital and her grandson will be able to hold hands and meet. In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the government has been restricting face-to-face visits to facilities vulnerable to infection, such as nursing hospitals and facilities, from the end of July.
Nursing hospital-facility is a typical ‘tragedy’ space in the Corona era. It is an infection-vulnerable 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 be admitted to a nursing hospital, the house becomes depressed. The patient walks reluctantly with tears in his eyes, and the children repeat “I’m sorry” over and over.
In fact, admission to nursing homes or nursing homes, which everyone is reluctant to, can be greatly reduced. Of the approximately 1 million elderly in need of 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 long-term hospitalizations for more than six months. This is because family members cannot afford to take care of them, and the government and local governments have virtually given up on caring services.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare decided the long-term care insurance premium rate for next year to 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 disease. Those over 65 years of age 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 care services at home.
Even if your health is bad enough to enter a ‘nursing home’, you can freely enter a ‘nursing hospital’. As 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 are not level 1 or 2 required to enter a nursing home, so it is ‘welcome’ from the perspective 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 the hospital.
There are not only grandfathers, grandmothers, 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 – cerebral hemorrhage) is a case in which one body is paralyzed or a person suffers a speech disorder due to poor vision. They have no one to take care of them at home, so they resort to nursing homes. These days, middle-aged is a ‘flesh’ age. How frustrating is it that these people are ‘stuck’ in a nursing home? Not only corona, but also because it is a facility vulnerable to respiratory diseases, so I am even afraid. The family can’t even hold hands with each other and barely talk through the glass walls.
There is a stroke (paralysis) patient who walks the road with an uncomfortable body and burns the will to rehabilitate. he’s great Even if it’s hard, I don’t stop exercising. Communicate with the doctor frequently 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 by their family members and receive only the support of a caregiver.
The government and local governments should not delay taking care of only family members, 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 can come to me soon, not in the distant future. When that time comes, I too have to move to the nursing hospital with tears in my eyes. Every time an infectious disease spreads, you will spend days trembling with fear.