CRISIS: Pregnant woman turned away by 16 hospitals in South Korea

Public outrage has erupted at the news that 16 hospitals across South Korea refused assistance to a pregnant woman before she was finally admitted.

Key Takeaways:

• Not long after reports indicated that a pregnant woman lost one of her twins due to a hospital turnaways in Daegu in South Korea, another pregnant woman was found to have been refused by 16 hospitals in the region.

• Unlike the first incident, which resulted in the death of a twin and series injuries to the other twin, this pregnant mother was discharged after a delay in treatment, with her and her preborn baby in stable condition.

• South Korea's health care system appears to be in crisis across the board, not just in maternity care, with patients turned away due to a shortage of hospitals beds and providers.

The Details:

The Korea Times noted that a 36-year-old woman was 20 weeks pregnant and was refused admission by 16 medical facilities in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. After a three-hour delay, she was admitted to a hospital in Asan, South Chungcheong Province. The Times reported:

According to the Daegu Fire and Disaster Headquarters, a call came in at 2 a.m. on March 25 reporting that the woman, who was staying at her in-laws’ home in Dong District, Daegu, was suffering from abdominal pain.

However, when paramedics attempted a hospital transfer, "16 maternity departments across Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province declined to admit her, quoting reasons such as a lack of available beds, no obstetrician on duty, or doctors occupied with other emergencies," the Times stated.

The control center noted that the woman "was in stable condition and showed no immediate signs of labor," which led to the decision to allow a long-distance transfer to another province.

The mother was discharged following medical care, with she and her preborn baby reportedly in stable condition.

In Daegu, a lack of emergency facilities is causing the need to transport patients further away for care. The Korea Times noted, "In Daegu, the number of out-of-area transfers taking more than two hours from the arrival of emergency responders at the scene to the patient’s arrival at a hospital stood at seven in 2024, rising to 13 last year."

The Big Picture:

According to a recent New York Times article, this trend isn't limited to Daegu:

Despite being one of the wealthiest countries in Asia, South Korea has a buckling emergency-care system. A chronic shortage of E.R. doctors, fewer legal protections for physicians than in other rich nations and a quirk in the emergency response system — paramedics must wait for hospital permission before transporting a patient to an E.R. — have led to delays that can be fatal.

These hospital rejections — called “E.R. runaround,” “ambulance pingpong” or E.R. “merry-go-round” by the local news media — have become more acute in recent years, government data shows. President Lee Jae Myung has described the failures as systemic.

It isn't just impacting pregnant patients, but patients with health needs of all types.

Why It Matters:

And yet, with birth rates hitting record lows in South Korea, many hospitals have cut down on or shut their maternity wards down due to financial strain and a shortage of obstetricians. Rural areas have been hit hardest, with some expectant mothers forced to travel hours to a hospital equipped for emergency care. An article in Time reported:

South Korea is home to at least 130,000 doctors, but that isn’t enough for its needs. Latest OECD data show that South Korea has just 2.5 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants, or about two-thirds of the OECD average of 3.7. This scarcity has manifested itself in extreme ways: in one instance, a hospital had to stop offering inpatient care for children for three months because it could not hire resident pediatricians.

As Live Action News previously reported, another pregnant woman carrying twins who went into premature labor in Daegu was turned away by seven major hospitals in the region in February. It was four hours before doctors performed a C-section at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. One of the newborn twins died; the other was left in critical condition, suffering brain damage.

The Korea Times reported that efforts are underway to attempt to remedy the dire situation:

Eom Jun-wook, head of the Daegu Fire and Disaster Headquarters, said authorities would prioritize assigning specialized personnel to the Emergency Medical Control Center, including nurses with experience in obstetrics, pediatrics and trauma care, as well as level-1 paramedics.

He added that emergency responders would also be stationed at hospitals to gain hands-on experience in specialized treatment procedures.

The Bottom Line:

As South Korea faces an aging population, its policymakers increasingly view childbirth as a national necessity.

However, the state of its maternal healthcare system (and healthcare system overall) reveals that much needs to be done to build a life-affirming culture.