On Wednesday, which was in the course of the Chuseok vacation, a discover about delays in emergency room providers is displayed on the emergency medical middle of a big hospital in Seoul. (Yonhap)
The variety of sufferers who visited hospital emergency rooms dropped 32 % in the course of the Chuseok vacation, the well being ministry mentioned Thursday, assessing that there have been no main disruptions in emergency care.
A chronic walkout by trainee medical doctors had fueled considerations about potential disruptions at hospital emergency rooms in the course of the vacation, prompting the federal government to ask sufferers with gentle sicknesses to go to neighborhood hospitals.
The common variety of sufferers who visited emergency rooms stood at 26,983 in the course of the vacation, down 32 % from final yr’s Chuseok vacation.
Additionally, the variety of sufferers with gentle sicknesses who visited emergency rooms dropped 39 % on-year in the course of the vacation.
“The emergency rooms had been capable of give attention to treating critically ailing sufferers as individuals with gentle sickness avoided visiting,” Jung Yoon-soon, a senior well being ministry official, instructed reporters.
“We want to categorical our gratitude to medical officers who actively participated in efforts to safeguard the well being and lives of the individuals over the vacation,” Jung mentioned.
However the Korean Medical Affiliation (KMA), an affiliation of neighborhood medical doctors, criticized the federal government’s evaluation about no main vacation disruptions in emergency providers as “self-praise.”
“Within the run-up to the Chuseok vacation, the federal government hiked medical funds by sufferers with gentle signs and referred to as for such sufferers to chorus from utilizing emergency rooms. It took stop-gap measures that amounted to intimidation,” the KMA mentioned in an announcement. (Yonhap)