A 33-month-old girl who was rescued from cardiac arrest after falling into a water-filled puddle in Boeun-gun, North Chungcheong Province, South Korea, passed away on Mar. 30, over three hours later. Efforts to transfer her from a local hospital in Boeun to eleven university hospitals in the Chungcheong and Gyeonggi provinces were unsuccessful due to a lack of staff and beds, along with an assessment that the patient was not in a condition to be transferred.
Fire authorities reported on Mar. 31 that at around 4:30 p.m. on the previous day, the 119 dispatch center received a call about the young girl falling into a 1-meter-deep puddle near a greenhouse in Boeun-gun, North Chungcheong Province. Her father rescued her, and paramedics administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) due to her lack of breath and pulse. She was rushed to a hospital in Boeun 19 minutes later. During the CPR, a pulse was momentarily detected. Attempts were made to admit her to one of the eleven university hospitals in the Chungcheong and Gyeonggi regions. Still, all attempts were unsuccessful due to a lack of available resources. She succumbed around 7:40, more than three hours after her rescue.
Medical experts have stated that the chances of her survival were slim even if she had been transferred to a larger facility. Lee Hyung-min, chairman of the Korea Emergency Medical Association, said, “She was an ‘out-of-hospital cardiac arrest’ case who arrived at the hospital in cardiac arrest, a condition that, on average, has a survival rate of less than 5%.”
The incident has sparked debate over the quality of local healthcare and pediatric emergency services. Notably, the local hospital in Boeun, the initial point of care, lacked an emergency medicine specialist. Moreover, North Chungcheong Province does not have any pediatric emergency centers. The local university hospital in the province also has no pediatric surgeons.
A government official said, “We are investigating, but it appears that the hospitals that declined the transfer lacked pediatric specialists and intensive care units.”
From Apr. 1, there will be a nationwide reduction in the working hours for medical university professors, with doctors moving towards a ‘40-hour work week,’ potentially exacerbating the healthcare disparity. Medical school professors have announced plans to curtail working hours and scale back on outpatient services and surgeries starting from Apr. 1. The Korean Medical Association has committed to adhering to the ‘40-hour week’ regulation.
The Korea Alliance of Patients Organizations has urged the government and the medical sector to find a middle ground to bridge the healthcare gap swiftly.
