Pulse Returned After Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Drug Administration
Death Occurred While Transferring to a Higher-Level Hospital for Additional Treatment
A 33-month-old child who was rescued in a state of cardiac arrest after falling into a ditch died after being refused transfer by nine tertiary hospitals, causing shock.
According to the fire authorities on the 31st, a report was received the previous day at around 4:30 p.m. that a 33-month-old girl, A, had fallen into a ditch about 1 meter deep next to a house in Boeun-eup, Boeun-gun, Chungbuk.
A view of a medical college in Seoul. Stock photo unrelated to the article. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@
Girl A was rescued by her father but was in cardiac arrest. The 119 emergency medical team transported her to B Hospital in Boeun 20 minutes later.
Girl A received emergency treatment including cardiopulmonary resuscitation and drug administration at B Hospital, and at around 5:33 p.m. that day, her pulse briefly returned on an electrocardiogram (EKG) test.
Accordingly, the hospital judged that Girl A had achieved return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), with her heart beating again and blood circulating, and sought to transfer her to a tertiary hospital for further treatment.
The hospital requested transfer to nine tertiary hospitals (one in Chungbuk, three in Daejeon, one in Sejong, two in Chungnam, and two in Gyeonggi-do), but all refused the transfer due to lack of beds.
Meanwhile, Girl A went back into cardiac arrest at around 7:01 p.m., and was ultimately declared dead about 40 minutes later.
Aside from the nine hospitals, the only place that contacted to say they could accept Girl A was a university hospital in Daejeon at around 7:29 p.m. that day.
A representative of one university hospital that refused the transfer said, "It was not a refusal due to a medical blackout situation," and explained, "If the patient were transferred to our hospital, which is 40 minutes away from Boeun, the patient's condition could worsen, so we did not accept the transfer."
A representative of B Hospital also explained, "The pediatric intensive care unit usually does not have many available beds," and added, "The tertiary hospitals said they had no beds, so they could not accommodate the patient."
Earlier, regarding the case in Busan where a man in his 90s was transferred to a hospital for myocardial infarction but died without receiving treatment, the Ministry of Health and Welfare judged that it was not related to collective resignations.
Jeon Eun-jung, head of the Central Accident Response Headquarters Immediate Response Team, explained in an online briefing, "It is difficult to see that the Busan university hospital refused the patient," and added, "There was no absence of specialists at the hospital, but there were fewer than usual, and they had to care for other cardiology patients."
Meanwhile, as the resident doctors' strike has extended for over a month and professors have begun resigning, patients are expressing anxiety, fearing that even greater harm cases may arise in the future.
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