During the COVID-19 pandemic, we came across an unfamiliar term: "administrative order." As critically ill COVID-19 patients surged, the government wielded these administrative orders like a magic wand, pushing the medical front lines to the brink of collapse.
CJB Reporter Hong Woo-pyo has the story.
For days, the COVID-19 intensive care unit at Chungbuk National University Hospital has completely run out of available beds.
Similarly, Osong Bestian Hospital, another designated base hospital, currently has a bed occupancy rate of around 95%, leaving virtually no capacity to accept additional patients.
The government recently issued an administrative order requiring 70% of available hospital beds in non-metropolitan areas to be filled with patients from the greater Seoul area.
Given patient transport distances, the practical scope of this revised guideline covers the Chungcheong and Gangwon regions.
This has led to a situation where the government bypasses provincial governments, which previously managed bed allocations, and directly pressures hospitals to accept patients.
Furthermore, since the order applies to 70% of available beds rather than 70% of total beds, hospitals will be forced to take in patients from the greater Seoul area the moment a bed becomes vacant.
[Chungbuk National University Hospital Official: We only have 3 semi-intensive care beds left. If we are told to use 70% of available beds for the greater Seoul area, we only have 1 bed left to accept patients from the Chungbuk region. It is deeply regrettable that local patients in Chungbuk may be blocked from receiving treatment at base hospitals.]
The Chungbuk Provincial Government maintains that it is desirable for local patients to be treated within the region, but stated that the authority to allocate beds rests with the government.
The government also takes the stance that critically ill patients in Chungbuk can be accommodated in Daegu or Jeonbuk, where there is remaining bed capacity.
[Chungcheongbuk-do Official: That is just a scenario. The principle is that if there are no beds, we request assistance from the Central Patient Transfer Support Situation Room. They could go to the greater Seoul area or to Jeonbuk...]
To escape the worst-case scenario of recycling hospital beds, society ultimately has no choice but to set priorities for treating critically ill COVID-19 patients.
This is because securing additional beds without accompanying expansions in medical staff and resources is meaningless.
Without a social consensus on who should be admitted to the intensive care unit first, severe chaos driven by limited medical resources will be unavoidable.
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