Gyeonggi Fire Department Adds 32 Negative Pressure Transport Devices

Negative pressure transfer equipment

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] The Gyeonggi-do Fire and Disaster Headquarters purchased 32 'negative pressure transport devices' necessary for transporting COVID-19 infectious disease patients, and has prioritized distributing 10 of them to frontline fire stations. The remaining 22 units will be distributed next week. As a result, the number of negative pressure transport devices in the province has increased to 42, including the existing 10 units, marking the highest level nationwide.

The negative pressure transport device is a device that covers the patient infected by viruses or bacteria with a cover to form negative pressure, isolating from outside air, and transports them to a medical institution where treatment is possible.

The province urgently supported about 250 million KRW (7.92 million KRW per unit) in contingency funds to introduce the negative pressure transport devices.

The Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters plans to request the first supplementary budget to introduce an additional 33 units.

Meanwhile, the province supported the purchase of quarantine supplies, including 144,000 masks and 1,320 boxes of sterile sheets essential for preventing secondary infection of firefighters, spending about 530 million KRW from the disaster management fund.

Separately from this equipment support, the province encouraged Gyeonggi-do firefighters who were dispatched to the Daegu and Gyeongbuk areas by delivering consolation goods and letters seven times since the 10th.

A Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters official emphasized, "We will ensure there is no negligence in preventing the spread of community infection and guaranteeing the safety of emergency medical technicians."

According to the Gyeonggi Fire Headquarters, since the first confirmed Korean case on January 24th until the 11th of this month, there have been 8,884 emergency transports related to COVID-19 over 48 days. This accounts for 19.6% of the total 45,218 emergency transports during this period. One out of five emergency transports is related to COVID-19.

Among them, 1,009 suspected patients, accounting for 11.4%, underwent COVID-19 testing, and 35 of them were confirmed positive.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.