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.