<We need Telehealth system in Korea>

2106 김용현

We are living in the pandemic world. Covid-19 has taken over the whole planet, and people are still distancing each other. In this situation, I could not visit my grandparents living in the countryside for a long time. My grandmother has an asthma, so she should go to see a doctor once a month. Since my grandparents have nothing to ride, they use public transportation to go somewhere. However, Covid-19 made people avoid using public transportation, and prevented my grandmother from going to the hospital. Eventually, her symptoms got worse, so my mom took grandmother to hospital with her car. After this happening, I felt the necessity of remote-healthcare system to care people who live out of hospital’s range. Therefore, I fully agree with the opinion which the Korean government should act quickly and adopt the Telehealth system.

The first reason is the support to the people far from the scope of medical healthcare. The people who cannot go to get the medical aid for some reason-like my grandmother-can see a doctor comfortably at home when the telehealth system adopted. The Australian government decided to inject an 1.1 billion Australian dollar into telehealth services when social distancing regulations due to Covid-19 began. After the introduction of telehealth system, 13.8 million telehealth services have been provided, and telehealth usage among Australians has exploded over the past two months. Judging from these results, telehealth would be a very useful system.

For the next reason, the telehealth system can also be useful in social distancing situations like nowadays. Medical staffs working in this situation are always at risk of infection. But it would be really safe to be able to solve things like a simple examination or prescription remotely. That is why a telehealth system is necessary. Telehealth allows medical staff to work more safely, and patients do not have to fear infection through contact with other patients.

To sum up, telehealth system is not only necessary in these desperate situations, but can also be very useful to people outside the scope of medical benefits, so the Korean government ‘must’ introduce them.