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Koreans go to hospitals most often among OECD nations

Posted October. 02, 2017 07:33,   

Updated October. 02, 2017 08:11

한국어

A survey showed that Koreans go to hospitals most often among OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) member countries. According to the 2017 Heath Statistics, which compares the number of outpatient visits to doctors per person in 2015, South Korea ranked first with 16 times, overtaking the second place Japan (12.7 times). This figure is more than double the OECD average (seven times). While the Swedish go to the hospital once, Korean go five times, so to speak.  

In 1999, when Korea first participated in the survey, it ranked fifth with the average annual number of outpatient visits to doctors per person of 8.8, followed by Japan (14.5 times). But since the number of medical treatments had steadily increased to 14.3 times in 2012, outdoing Japan (12.9 times), Korea has kept the first place ever. Its average length of hospitalization for a patient in 2015 is 16.1 days, second only to Japan (29.1 days).

This is due to Korea’s high medical accessibility with 11.5 beds per 1,000 people, which is the second highest level among OECD countries.



Gun-Hee Cho becom@donga.com