Waiting for hospitalization for the fourth day… Seoul’s 60’s confirmed dead

Diabetes-high blood pressure, but asymptomatic when it was confirmed that he had “itchy throat”
After 3 days, the condition rapidly deteriorates… Death at home due to lack of beds
Seoul 1 seriously dedicated bed left
A patient in her 60s who had been waiting for hospitalization for four days after being confirmed with a novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) in Seoul died. As of the 16th, there is only one treatment bed for severely ill patients who can be hospitalized in Seoul, and the number of confirmed patients per day surpassed the record high of 400.

○ It was classified as asymptomatic but died at home.

Song Eun-cheol, head of the Seoul Infectious Disease Control Division, said in an online briefing on the 17th, “A resident of Seoul who had an underlying disease was confirmed on the 12th and died on the 15th while waiting for a bed assignment.”

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, A, who died in her 60s, is a confirmed person related to’Pagoda Town’ in Jongno-gu. He had a negative test on his first specimen on the 4th. However, after the wife was confirmed as confirmed, she was positive in the test she took again on the 11th.

From August 21, Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, and Incheon City will classify patients and allocate beds by the National Medical Center’s’Seoul Metropolitan Corona 19 Field Response Team’ when a confirmed case occurs according to the’Seoul Metropolitan Area Joint Bed Use Plan’. However, it is known that A was classified as an asymptomatic patient with no special symptoms, saying, “Only the throat is itchy” during an interview conducted at a public health center. For this reason, it is known that the quarantine authorities have determined that A is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, but it is possible to control blood sugar as long as he has enough medicine. As a result, patients with symptoms such as dyspnea or pneumonia were pushed to wait at home and monitored by medical staff. However, from the 14th, Mr. A’s symptoms suddenly worsened. The competent health center urgently requested the city’s bed assignment, but the assignment was postponed due to the lack of beds. It is reported that Mr. A was confirmed early in the morning of the 15th, and after talking to his wife who was admitted to the hospital, the contact was cut off. On the morning of that day, an paramedic was dispatched to his home at his wife’s report, but Mr. A had already died.

An official from the quarantine authorities explained, “This is not the first case in which a patient waiting for a bed died,” and said, “We know that we were preparing for deployment in consideration of age group, underlying disease, and symptoms at the time of bed assignment.” Until this day, the death toll from Corona 19 in Seoul reached 125. The mortality rate compared to the total confirmed cases was 0.93%.

○ “Administrative medical system overload condition”

Currently, the bed conditions in Seoul are not sufficient. As of 8 p.m. on the 16th, the hospital bed utilization rate at a hospital dedicated to infectious diseases in Seoul is 86.1%. In particular, 79 out of 80 secured treatment beds for severely ill patients are used, so only one bed can be admitted immediately. Life treatment centers for asymptomatic or mildly confirmed patients are available in only 159 out of 1929 beds. For this reason, it is known that more than 200 of the newly confirmed patients in Seoul have been waiting for more than two days to be deployed. A Seoul city official said, “From the beginning of this month, the number of confirmed patients has increased, and the administrative and medical systems are overloaded, making it difficult to allocate beds.”

As the spread of Corona 19 increases, this situation is expected to continue for the time being. In Seoul, 423 people were confirmed on the 16th, surpassing the previous maximum of 399 on the 12th. In a nursing hospital in Guro-gu, one patient was confirmed for the first time on the 15th, and 20 patients, including patients and workers, were further confirmed on the 16th. The number of infections related to the construction site in Yongsan-gu increased to 76, with 14 additional infections.

Reporter Park Chang-gyu [email protected]