Patient Dies During Implant Procedure at Large Gangnam Dental Clinic

▲ Gangnam District Office

Gangnam-gu announced on August 25 that it conducted an on-site inspection and reported the results to the Ministry of Health and Welfare immediately after learning of a case in which two patients died within an interval of eight months at a large, low-cost dental clinic in Gangnam, Seoul.

The district office stated that this incident has exposed blind spots in the current medical accident information-sharing system, prompting it to request institutional improvements from the government.

Following the death of a patient who was receiving an implant procedure at Dental Clinic A in Gangnam on December 30 of last year, a similar fatal accident occurred at the same dental clinic on the 3rd of this month.

The dental clinic reportedly used narcotic sedatives and local anesthetics during the treatment processes of the deceased patients.

In response, during a meeting of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee on the 21st, People Power Party Representative Sohee asked Minister of Health and Welfare Jeong Eun-kyung whether the jurisdictional public health center had inspected the dental clinic, to which Minister Jeong replied, "I will check."

In a press release issued that day, Gangnam-gu stated, "We did not receive a separate notice at the time of the first accident, and we first became aware of the occurrence through media reports on January 26 of this year."

It added, "We subsequently included the medical institution in a planned joint inspection of dental clinics and hospitals with high usage of medical narcotics conducted by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and Gangnam-gu, carrying out a joint inspection in February."

Gangnam-gu also stated that it confirmed the second fatal accident through media reports on the 14th, carried out an unannounced inspection of the dental clinic with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on the 18th—immediately after the Liberation Day holiday—and reported the findings to the Ministry of Health and Welfare on the 24th.

The district explained, "The inspection verified the handling and storage of medical narcotics, the creation and preservation of medical records, the licenses and qualifications of medical personnel, and facility standards, but no particular violations were found."

The district pointed out that under the current system, even if a major medical accident such as a patient death occurs at a clinic-level medical institution, there are limitations to the jurisdictional public health center grasping that fact in real time.

In addition, it emphasized that administrative inspections by public health centers are procedures to verify compliance with statutes such as the Medical Service Act and the Narcotics Control Act, which are distinct from investigations to determine causal relationships between patient deaths and medical acts or professional negligence by medical staff.

Gangnam-gu argued that the current medical accident information-sharing system should be improved in the wake of this accident.

The district plans to recommend to the Ministry of Health and Welfare the establishment of a system to quickly share and notify jurisdictional local governments when major medical accidents occur at clinic-level medical institutions.

It also plans to request expanding the operating room facility standards currently applied to general anesthesia to include intravenous and sedation anesthesia, thereby making patient monitoring devices and emergency equipment mandatory.

Furthermore, the district plans to supplement its existing biannual inspections for medical institutions within its jurisdiction by conducting quarterly intensive inspections focused on areas closely related to patient safety.

(Photo provided by Gangnam-gu, Yonhap News)

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