Crisis a strain on Asia's public health care

Crisis a strain on Asia's public health care

SINGAPORE (AP): Asia's public health care systems are under
severe strain from the region's economic crisis, experts at an
international conference in Singapore said on Thursday.

Low-priced public hospitals are becoming overcrowded as even
wealthier Asians shun private facilities in order to save money,
researchers said at a forum organized by The Economist
Conferences.

"People who can pay for the private hospitals are pulling up
to the public hospitals in a Mercedes-Benz," said Anne Hockett,
managing director of venture capital company Asia Health
Ventures.

In Hong Kong, for example, about 25 percent of public hospital
patients were from middle and upper-middle income groups, Hockett
told reporters.

Public hospitals in countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and
Malaysia have seen a 20 percent to 30 percent increase in
patients since the crisis began in 1997, according to Hockett and
other researchers who prepared a report on the turmoil's effect
on Asian health care.

"The public sector (hospitals) have, overnight, inherited a
huge burden," Hockett said, noting that their resources were
strained by unprecedented occupancy rates of up to 85 percent.

"If it hits 80 to 85 percent occupancy, it's starting to
shake," she said. "When you increase your patient demands you've
got very, very weary professionals."

Demand for medicine supplies and equipment was also stretched,
Hockett added.

Meanwhile, Asia's expensive private hospitals are overly
capitalized and face excess capacity, Hockett said, noting that
developers ignored the potential for such problems before the
crisis.

"Some of this is so obvious, but we didn't pay any attention
to it because everybody was making money hand over fist," she
said. "That ended in 1997."

Researchers at the conference also said that more patients in
some parts of the region, especially Indonesia, were being hit by
a sudden huge rise in the cost of medicine.

"Pharmaceutical costs tend to be U.S. dollar-denominated,"
said Christine Pillsbury, Asia-Pacific health care manager for
Netherlands-based Rabobank International, who also researched the
Asian health care report.

This means that costs of imported medicines and equipment
would have skyrocketed due to Asian currencies' sudden
devaluation against the greenback, Pillsbury said.

"Costs have gone up anywhere from 20 percent in some countries
to 300 percent in places like Indonesia," she said.

"I just don't think people are being treated in Indonesia,"
said Sarah Prentice, a health-care researcher and management
consulting partner at Price Waterhouse Coopers.

More people in Asia's lower-income areas were avoiding health
care altogether or were unable to seek treatment because they
were working more, she said.

The researchers were speaking on the sidelines of a two-day
round table conference titled "Health Care Solutions for a Region
in Crisis."

The Economist Conferences, based in Hong Kong, is part of the
group which also publishes The Economist magazine. The
organization sponsors forums between officials and executives.