DEATHS DURING MEDICAL TRANSPORTATION

[Anchor Lead]

An average of 2.5 emergency patients are known to die every day in the country while on their way to the hospital. This is because the patients failed to receive medical treatment within the so-called golden time window. The situation is far worse in the rural provinces where medical infrastructure is severely lacking.

[Pkg]

​An elderly heart attack patient is being transported to the ER on a helicopter. Patients with such conditions or serious external injuries sustained from car accidents need to be carried to the hospital right away. To save lives, it's imperative that doctors treat them within a crucial window of time. For serious external injuries there's only about an hour long window while sudden heart attacks require medical attention within 2 hours. From January to August, 617 such emergency patients did not make it to the hospital and died on the way. This equals an average of 2.5 cases a day. About half of all cities, counties and districts nationwide failed to bring the patient in within that golden time. But there was huge disparity by region. In the rest of the country except for the capital area and other metropolitan cities, 70% of patients of serious injuries and 80% of heart attack cases failed to reach the hospital in time.

[Soundbite] PROF. CHUNG SUNG-PIL(GANGNAM SEVERANCE HOSPITAL) : "In these provinces, reaching the hospital often takes longer and it's also difficult to fully address the emergency situation with local resources."

Ulleung-gun County in Gyeongsangbuk-do Province was the slowest to respond, taking an average of 7 hours to transport patients to the ER. Among inland regions, the county of Goheung-gun in Jeollanamdo Province reported the longest response time of over 3 hours.

[Soundbite] REP. KIM KWANG-SOO(NAT'L ASSEMBLY HEALTH & WELFARE COMMITTEE) : "The Health Ministry should expand medical infrastructure in the provinces through measures like establishing a patient transport system and increasing emergency rooms."

The number of patients who died but could have survived if treated in a timely fashion was three times higher in the provinces than in Seoul.