Pregnant Woman with Ruptured Amniotic Sac Rejected by 75 Hospitals... Treated Only After Signing "No Liability" Agreement

"Not Holding Hospital Responsible" Signed Before Treatment
Both Current Fetus and Pregnant Woman Are Stable

As the medical gap triggered by the collective resignation of residents prolonged, an incident occurred in Cheongju, Chungbuk, where a pregnant woman at 25 weeks of pregnancy experienced amniotic fluid leakage and called 119, but was rejected by 75 hospitals.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the weekend before the Chuseok holiday, around 11:25 a.m. on the 14th, the fire authorities received a report stating "the amniotic fluid broke at 25 weeks of pregnancy" and contacted 75 hospitals nationwide to find a hospital to treat the pregnant woman, but all refused. Despite the pregnant woman being in an emergency condition with bleeding, large hospitals in Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi, Jeolla, Gyeongsang, and Jeju provinces rejected the patient citing reasons such as "no obstetricians available" and "lack of neonatal intensive care unit beds."

More than four hours after the report, at 3:39 p.m., the fire headquarters informed the Chungbuk provincial office, which was operating an emergency medical management center. The pregnant woman was treated at an obstetrics and gynecology clinic in Cheongju about two hours later, at 5:32 p.m. Even then, treatment was only possible after the guardian signed a document stating that the hospital would not be held responsible if anything happened to the baby. Fortunately, both the pregnant woman and the fetus are now stable.

On the 10th, there was also a case in Jeju where a high-risk pregnant woman was transferred to Incheon due to a shortage of neonatal intensive care unit beds. Jeju National University Hospital is the only hospital in Jeju operating a neonatal intensive care unit, but at the time of the report, there were no available beds, making admission impossible.

Medical Gap Prolongs as Blacklist of Working Doctors Emerges

Recently, as residents left medical sites in protest against the Yoon Seok-yeol administration's medical school expansion, waiting times at university hospitals increased and so-called "emergency room cycling deaths" occurred. Amid this, a blacklist maliciously revealing the real names of doctors working in emergency rooms surfaced, causing public outrage. On a site presumed to be created by doctors in the form of an archive (information repository), the names of some staff working in emergency rooms at hospitals operating emergency rooms were posted under the title "Emergency Room Collaborators." The list included real names of working doctors with messages such as "Thank you, Dr. 000, for deciding to stop the illegal strike and stay by the patients' side."

In response, the prosecution requested a pre-arrest warrant for Doctor A, who created and disclosed the list of returning residents. Doctor A was booked on charges including violation of the Personal Information Protection Act, and after legal review, the police also applied charges under the Stalking Punishment Act. The prosecution stated, "We will strictly respond to crimes that collectively ridicule and despise medical personnel working for the life and health of the public in cyberspace." The warrant hearing for Doctor A will be held on the 20th at the Seoul Central District Court.