Ministry of Health and Welfare Begins Discussions on Management System for 'Emergency Patient Admission Difficulty Notices'

On the 16th, the Ministry of Health and Welfare formed a consultative body and held a meeting to establish a management system for notifying difficulties in accepting emergency patients.

Emergency room stock photo. [Photo by Asia Economy DB]

The consultative body includes emergency medical experts and medical professionals such as the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the National Fire Agency, local governments, the Central Emergency Medical Center, Regional Emergency Medical Support Centers, the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine, the Korean Medical Association, and the Korean Hospital Association, as well as patient groups and legal experts.

Previously, the Emergency Medical Service Act was amended so that emergency medical institutions cannot refuse or avoid emergency medical care without justifiable reasons. The government formed and operated a consultative body last year to establish standards and procedures for notifying difficulties in acceptance, prepared a draft revision of the enforcement rules, and conducted a legislative notice in January this year.

However, disagreements were raised regarding the amendment, and recently, incidents such as deaths caused by "emergency room spinning" have occurred, increasing calls for clearly defining the standards for notifying difficulties in acceptance by emergency medical institutions. The Ministry of Health and Welfare explained, "The consultative body has been reactivated to further collect opinions from the field regarding detailed discussions on the draft revision of the enforcement rules and the establishment of standards for managing notifications of acceptance difficulties."

Starting with the meeting on this day, the Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to establish consensus on the draft revision of the enforcement rules and develop standard guidelines for managing notifications of acceptance difficulties through regular discussions. These guidelines will be distributed to local governments to establish a management system for notifications of acceptance difficulties tailored to regional characteristics.

Park Hyang, Director of Public Health Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, stated, "To quickly transfer and treat emergency patients, it is necessary to systematically organize the procedures for transferring and accepting emergency patients and the standards for notifying difficulties in acceptance." She added, "We plan to prepare related regulations through the operation of the consultative body to ensure that the procedure for confirming the capacity to accept emergency patients is systematically carried out in the field."

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