Uninsured Teacher Caught in Apartment Blaze: Korea
William Kapoun is living every teacher's worst nightmare, in a hospital
without insurance and staggering
medical bills.
Almost two weeks ago, a fire broke out at Kapoun's
Seoul apartment at
dawn. With the only exit blocked by the fire, he was trapped and received third
degree burns over 70 percent of his body. As a part-time teacher at a
public school
"after-hours" program in Seoul, Kapoun received no insurance with his
contract. At the moment, he is facing a medical charge of upwards of $130,000.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation and will take at least a week
further, according to police, to discover.
http://www.billkapoun.com
For the Korea Times article, refer to:
www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/03/113_20066.html
By Spencer
McCall
Categories: Money,Warning,2008,Visa,ASIA,Health,Korea,Danger,Spencer McCall
Bill passed away....Don't get a job without some sort of Insurance!
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Teaching English in Korea without insurance? One would say he was foolish but in reality he was probably told by his agent and school that all medical and dental bills were automatically covered. I taught English in South Korea and discovered when I left that I had nothing in the form of insurance even though I had been told by my agent at the interview that I did. are going anywhere to work don't let someone lie to you, take out your own insurances and keep multiple copies of all documents.
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I agree with you Ian. You have to cover your own end when you're traveling. It's just unfortunate William can never have the chance to learn from his experience. You were lucky and so was I. The insurance I had with my first ESL job abroad was just an agreement with a local doctor to teach his wife English in return for cheap health care. When I had to go the University hospital for a serious ailment, I had to cover the charges which were over $400. My school director just looked at me with a dumbfounded expression on her face and said the school's insurance didn't cover the expenses.
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Sadly, this young man died (maybe a week ago now?) The Korean hospital refused to release his body until his parents paid the entire medical bill, so donations have been collected to help the parents with this enormous debt. BTW, apparently a young Korean woman was sleeping in the apartment with him when the fire broke out. She died in the fire also, but her name has not been released. Soon after this story broke, I spoke to a woman now teaching in Korea but who is a former firefighter. She urged ALL FOREIGNERS - buy a SMOKE DETECTOR. The buildings here are firetraps, she said. This is probably true Asia-wide (except, perhaps, Japan). Good advice and I'm buying mine soon.
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Hi
Thanks for your comments. Actually we did do a follow up areticle, but we did not link it up to this article as a follow up.
the link is here:
http://blog.esldaily.org/2008/03/10/update-foreign-teacher-william-kapoun-passes-away.aspx
It's a real shame that he died. I hope foreigners in Korea will take warning from his experience and double check our health care plan and be aware of dangers that may happen.
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