최근 어느 유명 정치인이 20일 가까이 단식을 하다가 급기야 앰블런스에 실려갔다고 하는 뉴스를 접했다.

 누가 어떤 목적으로 단식을 하던 개인의 결단이지만 죽음의 문턱에 까지 다다르게 되었다는 기사는 듣는 이로 하여금 마음을 착잡하게 만든다.

  여하간 본론을 벗어나 이 소식을 공급하는 모 대중 매체가 인용한 단어 표현이 흥미로웠다. 이 정치인이 단식 농성에서 단식 전문 병원으로 옮겨갔다는 것이다.

  이 글을 보는 순간 단식 전문병원이라는 곳도 있었나 하는 의구심이 순간적으로 머리를 스쳤다. 주된 병원의 종류가 내과, 외과, 이비인후과, 피부과등 12 분류로 나타나있는데 새삼스럽게 단식과가 있을 수 있다는 것을 처음 알았다. 아울러 단식은 흔치않은 개인의 극단적인 선택인데 거기에 대비한 단식과가 따로 있을 수 있다는 사실조차 놀라웠다.

  기사내용을 봐서는 이 병원이 개인 병원으로 간주 되어진다. 그렇다면 단식 치료에 있어서 만큼은 서울대 의대 병원등 국내의 여러 일류 병원들을 제치고 이 개인병원만이 아는 의료기술과 노하우가 따로 있는지 궁금하기 짝이없다. 아울러 단식 환자가 가물에 콩나는 숫자보다 더 적다는 것은 누구든 쉽게 짐작할 수 있다.

  결과적으로 아주 드문 특수환자들을 위해 마련된 특수한 의료기술과 시설이 기능을 제대로 발휘할 기회가 거이 없을 거라는 생각이 들어 안타까울 뿐이다

A fasting specialist hospital

Recently, I came across a news about a well-known politician who had been nearly 20 days fast. He has apparently been taken to hospital as his health deteriorated predictably.

It’s not my interest in knowing what his motivation was to go through that self- inflicted agony in the first place. But I felt sorry to hear when his life seemed hanging in the balance after such lengthy starvation.

However, I was intrigued by the word that media chose while introducing this story. “He was taken to a fasting specialist hospital by an ambulance”.

‘A fasting specialist hospital’? I had to get my head around momentarily as the description was so strange. As a matter of fact, I have never heard of ‘a fasting specialist hospital’. It surely is an illogical term to anyone who are not even in medical field.

There are 12 fields in medical classification as we know such as internal medicine, surgery, ENT, Dermatology etc.

Is there perhaps a fasting specialist clinic that I didn’t know? Nevertheless, it sounds so bizzarre even comical if there is one and it must be so rare indeed.

And I had an impression that that is a private hospital which raises more questions in its stance. There are many top class prestigious hospitals nationally such as Seoul National University Hospital and so on…

Therefore, this private hospital must have the best medical skills and facilities for that kind of patients surpassing the top hospitals.

And I worry unduly how wasteful their excellent medical skills and facilities are as there are a very few patients who will be admitted into.