• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.153-185
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• 2020

In principle, even if serious consequences such as death or serious injury of a patient occur as a result of a medical accident, if the medical malpractice of a health care worker is not recognized, the health care worker is not held liable for said consequences. However, with the opening of the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency on April 7, 2012, a system was established to compensate health care personnel for their medical malpractices only in the case of "injuries caused by medical accidents in the course of childbirth" (hereinafter referred to as "program for compensation of medical accidents"). Article 46 paragraph 1 of the current Medical Dispute Mediation Act, which is the basis of the Force Majeure Medical Accident Compensation System, stipulates that "medical accidents under delivery" claims are to be determined by the Medical Accident Compensation Review Committee are subject to the compensation project. And the details of the compensation, ratio of sharing financial resources for compensation, scope of compensation, and the guidelines and procedure for the payment of compensations are prescribed by Presidential Decree. In other words, the Presidential Decree requires the state to pay 70 percent of the compensation funds, and 30 percent of the above funds among health care providers. The Constitutional Court has decided on the 2015Hun-Ga13 that the scope of the health care institution's founders and the share of the compensation funds cannot be directly determined by the law, and that the portion delegated by the Presidential decree does not violate the Principle of Legal Protection nor Comprehensive Nondelegation Doctrine. However, this can be seen as an exclusion of accountability for force-induced delivery accidents even if there is no negligence of the medical staff. If the nature of the system is a type of social security system with a social compensatory nature, it could consider eliminating the health care innovator's cost-sharing provisions, leaving the full cost to the state. However, it is also necessary to review institutional protocols that strengthen the efforts of medical institutions in areas such as analysis of the causes of medical accidents and measures to prevent their recurrence. In addition, I think that the conclusion of the Act is in line with the purpose of the Comprehensive Wage Support Regulations that at minimum the law sets an upper limit of the compensation funds that are to be paid by health and medical institutions. Moreover, it is reasonable for the Medical Accident Compensation Review Committee to specify gestational age and weight of births, which are the criteria for compensation, under the Enforcement Decree of the Medical Dispute Mediation Act, in relation to the criteria for payment of contributions by the Medical Accident Compensation Review Committee, and to set the detailed criteria.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.134-141
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• 2017

This study examined 191 pregnant women before delivery in an obstetrics and gynecology clinic in North Gyeongsang Province from May to September 2016 by using a questionnaire after obtaining informed consent for voluntary participation in the study. The study was performed to investigate the association of depression with sociodemographic characteristics, pregnancy-related characteristics, social support, sleep quality and Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) in pregnant women. The prevalence of depression among the pregnant women was 25.1% in the healthy group and 74.9% in the depression group. The depression level was significantly higher in women in the depression group who were unsatisfied with their marriage life, had no occupation, had lower social support, had poor sleep quality and had higher OHIP scores. The results of the logistic regression analysis indicated that, the risk ratio for more severe depression was significantly higher in the group with no experience of miscarriage and induced childbirth than in the group with childbirth experience. Conversely, the risk ratio for more severe depression was significantly lower in the group with high social support than in the group with low social support. Depression in the respondents significantly positively correlated with sleep quality and OHIP score but significantly negatively correlated with social support. The multiple regression analysis revealed that the depression level was significantly higher by 22.3% among pregnant women with lower marital satisfaction, no childbirth experience, lower social support and higher OHIP scores. In summary, depression was related to marital satisfaction, childbirth experience, social support, and OHIP score, among others, in pregnant women in this study. Therefore, further investigation is warranted to construct programs and measures that will help build positive thinking by designing and verifying a three-dimensional study model by taking into consideration various variables to reduce the incidence of depression in pregnant women.