PLANS ON EXPANDING HOSPITAL BEDS

[Anchor Lead]

The government will expand the number of COVID-19 hospital beds to ten thousand by next month. Beds for regular patients will be allocated to coronavirus patients. Health workers from military hospitals will be deployed to treat COVID patients. Disruptions in the treatment and operation of non-COVID patients will be inevitable.

[Pkg]

Currently there are 15,000 beds in hospitals and 17,000 beds in quarantine centers for treating COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms. By next month the government plans to secure ten thousand more beds -- some 7,000 in hospitals and 2400 at quarantine centers. Select state-run hospitals including the National Medical Center will only accept COVID-19 patients. The government vowed to prepare for larger outbreaks by securing enough hospital beds to handle up to ten thousand daily cases.

[Soundbite] Kim Boo-kyum(Prime Minister) : "We will monitor the situation and prepare measures to handle as many as 15,000 daily cases if needed. There are also plans to deploy 1200 additional health workers by dispatching medical officers and public health doctors as well as ICU nurses to treat COVID-19 patients."

However, hospitals say finding additional medical personnel by January is going to be difficult.

[Soundbite] Chung Jae-soo(Korean Health and Medical Workers' Union) : "It takes 2-3 months to have nurses take charge of patients. In the case of ICU nurses, it takes at least 6 months. Nurses from regular wards cannot work in ICUs, even the most experienced ones."

Disruptions in the treatment and operation of non-COVID-19 patients will likely be inevitable for the time being.

[Soundbite] Prof. Choi Won-suk(Korea University Ansan Hospital) : "There are few ICU beds available, and hospitals lack personnel and equipment to treat transferred COVID-19 patients. The government pledged to work towards minimizing damage from disruptions in health care services for regular patients."

The government plans to set up a taskforce comprising government agencies and the private sector to secure hospital beds and medical personnel.