22 S. Korea hospitals refuse care for woman whose heart stopped

INQUIRER.net stock photo

A woman in her 30s suffering from heart failure was refused treatment by 22 hospitals before being admitted, emergency workers said Wednesday, marking yet another case of an emergency patient being unable promptly to receive necessary medical care amid the ongoing medical strike and standoff.

Emergency operators in Cheongju, 112 kilometers south of Seoul, received a report at around 2:13 p.m. Tuesday from a man who said his girlfriend stopped breathing, according to the Chungbuk Fire Service Headquarter. The rescue workers who arrived on the scene found the patient barely breathing, after her boyfriend began cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

The woman, who suffered sudden heart failure while drinking, was deemed an emergency patient, and the emergency workers reached out to 22 hospitals in North and South Chungcheong Provinces, as well as in the Greater Seoul area. But all of them refused to take her, citing the lack of a specialist or resources to treat her.

READ: South Korean patients urge doctors to end walkout

She was ultimately admitted at a hospital 100 kilometers away from where she collapsed, located in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. She received medical care at around 5:46 a.m., over three hours after her heart had stopped.

Emergency workers said her condition had been dire at the time, having regained consciousness only just before she arrived at the Suwon hospital. The woman had issues communicating even after she was revived, and the medical staff are watching to see if the heart failure has left any lasting damage such as paralysis.

Doctors across South Korea have been participating in a mass walkout to protest the government’s plan to increase the number of doctors in the country via a medical school enrollment quota hike of 2,000 spots. The standoff has led to a severe staff shortage at hospitals across the nation, with more reports of emergency patients facing delays in receiving medical care.

READ: South Korea deploys military, public doctors to strike-hit hospitals

There were 3,071 cases of emergency patients being turned away by hospitals between Feb. 19 and Aug. 25 last year, with Feb. 19 being the day when the trainee doctors submitted their resignation en masse. According to National Fire Agency Data submitted to Rep. Youn Kun-young of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, such cases in these 190 days mark a 46.3 percent increase from the 190 days leading up to the trainee doctors’ walkout.