Pregnant women face ER runaround amid medical staff shortage

[Anchor]

As the medical gap crisis continues, urgent pregnant women are experiencing what is known as 'emergency room runaround' situations one after another.

To address this issue, the government has decided to connect the obstetricians that pregnant women usually visit with nearby clinics.

Whether this will be effective is something our reporter Joo Hyun-ji has investigated.

[Report]

A pregnant woman was transported to the emergency room due to a ruptured uterus.

Due to a shortage of medical staff, she went to five hospitals and only received surgery two hours after the report was made.

Her health has recovered, but she ultimately had a miscarriage.

Another pregnant woman requested transport to as many as 75 hospitals due to bleeding symptoms and received treatment after six hours.

Since the departure of residents, the 'emergency room runaround' has become a daily occurrence.

[Ahn Gi-hoon/Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Korea University Anam Hospital: "You can say that almost every day we are at full bed capacity. We couldn't accept three high-risk pregnant women today because there were no available beds. Right now, there are no available spots in the neonatal intensive care unit either."]

Obstetrics and gynecology, in particular, requires specialized knowledge, making it difficult to respond through the general emergency system.

To reduce these risks, the government plans to connect the obstetricians that pregnant women usually visit with ten nearby clinics within the first half of this year.

This is to ensure 24-hour telephone consultations and to quickly transfer medical staff and patients to hospitals with emergency rooms in case of emergencies within the designated area.

The medical community welcomes this initiative, but there are concerns that the risk of infection may increase during the process of transferring hospitals.

[Hwang Mi-jeong/President of Korean Association of Neonatal Nurse: "The movement of patients can pose a significant risk of infection, so controlling that could be a bit challenging for nurses..."]

In this year's first half recruitment of residents, only one person passed in obstetrics and gynecology.

Without fundamental solutions to the medical gap crisis, concerns remain that pregnant women will continue to endure "emergency room runarounds."

This is KBS News, Joo Hyun-ji.