"227 Patients Waiting Over a Day for Hospital Beds After Testing Positive in Seoul" (Summary)

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] In Seoul, the number of patients who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) and have been waiting at home without being assigned a hospital bed for more than a day has reached 227.

Park Yumi, Director of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Citizen Health Bureau (also the quarantine controller), stated during the COVID-19 online briefing held on the morning of the 18th, "As of midnight on the 17th, there are 580 patients in Seoul who have tested positive but are waiting at home." Among them, 353 patients were assigned hospital beds and admitted on the day they tested positive, while 227 patients have been waiting for more than a day.

Director Park said, "Considering that it usually takes a day from testing positive to hospital admission, the actual number of patients waiting due to a shortage of hospital beds is 227," adding, "We will do our best to minimize the waiting time for beds by promptly expanding beds at residential treatment centers or infectious disease-dedicated hospitals."

In Seoul, the shortage of hospital beds has reached a serious level, with a patient in their 60s who tested positive for COVID-19 the previous day and was waiting for a hospital bed dying at home after three days.

Regarding this, the Seoul Metropolitan Government explained, "Since August 21, under the metropolitan area joint bed utilization plan jointly managed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Seoul City, Gyeonggi Province, and Incheon City, patient classification and bed assignment tasks have been conducted through the 'Metropolitan COVID-19 Field Response Team' at the National Medical Center," adding, "Since early this month, there have been difficulties in bed assignment due to administrative and medical system overload caused by a surge in confirmed cases."

Director Park said, "To prevent such incidents from happening again, we have immediately deployed two additional dedicated public health doctors to the field response team and expanded the bed assignment personnel by 10," adding, "We plan to dispatch more dedicated personnel."

To closely monitor the condition of confirmed patients during the bed waiting period, monitoring of home-based patients in each autonomous district will also be strengthened. Director Park emphasized, "While strengthening monitoring is important, the most crucial factor is securing hospital beds, so we will make every effort to secure beds not only through public hospitals but also by involving private hospitals."

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