Minister Cho Kyu-hong Holds Emergency Medical Experts Meeting... Discusses Solutions to 'Emergency Room Admission Refusal'

On the afternoon of the 7th, Cho Kyu-hong, Minister of Health and Welfare, held a meeting with emergency medical experts at the BizHub Seoul Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, to discuss solutions to the issue of emergency room admission refusals.

Minister of Health and Welfare Cho Kyuhong held a meeting with emergency medical experts on the 7th to discuss measures to prevent emergency room admission refusals.
[Photo by Ministry of Health and Welfare]

Earlier, the government and the ruling party announced measures to prevent emergency room admission refusals through an emergency medical urgent countermeasure meeting between the government and the ruling party, including ▲alleviating emergency room overcrowding, ▲improving the timeliness of comprehensive situation board information, ▲strengthening the utilization of specialized personnel, and ▲establishing regional emergency medical situation rooms as control towers.

This meeting was organized to hear the opinions of emergency medical experts regarding the emergency room admission refusal prevention measures announced by the government and the ruling party. Specifically, they discussed the causes and solutions of emergency patient admission refusals within regions, considerations for the effective implementation of the government’s emergency room admission refusal prevention measures in the field, and other additional tasks that need to be implemented.

In particular, as solutions to the emergency room admission refusal issue, proposals included ▲the permanent securing of beds for severe emergency patients utilizing experience from COVID-19 ▲requests to refrain from using regional emergency medical centers for mild patients ▲reflecting severe emergency patient treatment indicators in the designation criteria for advanced general hospitals ▲and the necessity of preparing differentiated measures for the metropolitan area (prioritizing bed securing) and non-metropolitan areas (prioritizing securing medical staff).

Minister Cho stated, "The issue of emergency room admission refusals needs to be resolved immediately for the life and safety of the people, and the opinions raised at today’s meeting will be actively reviewed by the government and reflected in the countermeasures."