MEDICAL PLACES AND PERSONNEL SHORT IN DAEGU

[Anchor Lead]

Medical facilities and professionals are in short supply in Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do Province, where the number of coronavirus infections continues to spike. The government of Daegu City is urging the central government to provide help.

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All 240 sickbeds at this hospital treating coronavirus patients became occupied just five days after it opened. Some 200 doctors and nurses have been dispatched to the hospital from other regions, but it remains shorthanded. Each nurse has to take care of 20-30 patients.

[Soundbite] KIM HYUN-HEE(NURSE) : "The nurses are physically exhausted because we are understaffed. Each nurse has to take care of many patients. It's rough."

Hospital rooms that can accommodate patients are in short supply. Of more than one thousand infected patients in Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do Province, over 30 percent remain self-quarantined because of the shortage of hospital wards.

[Soundbite] KWON YOUNG-JIN(DAEGU MAYOR) : "We asked the government for help a lot over the past one week, and the government is also trying hard, but the situation remains difficult."

Diagnostic equipment and staff are also in short supply. In Daegu alone, two to three thousand specimens are received daily, but the local health and environment research center can only process 300 cases a day. The situation is so desperate that the local medical professionals are even considering dispatching doctors from private clinics to emergency rooms and designated hospitals for treating COVID-19.

[Soundbite] LEE SEONG-KOO(DAEGU CITY COUNCIL) : "We are planning to set up a volunteer team comprising doctors from private clinics and dispatch them to general hospitals, screening stations and public health centers to work at night."

Health authorities have promised to secure some 1,600 sickbeds by next month not only in Daegu but in other regions as well. However, it will likely take time to transport and hospitalize all the patients.