The prosecutors' office has requested a supplementary police investigation into the case of an Incheon nursing hospital that amputated a patient's leg and mistakenly disposed of it as recyclable items.

According to the legal community on the 12th, the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office requested the Incheon Yeonsu Police Station to conduct a supplementary investigation into the improper disposal of a patient's leg at a nursing hospital in Incheon that occurred last June.

The prosecutors reportedly instructed the police to additionally investigate whether it was appropriate for medical staff to perform the leg amputation in a hospital room rather than an operating room.

Earlier in early August, the police forwarded three individuals—including a head nurse, a nursing assistant, and a volunteer at the hospital—to the prosecution on charges of violating the Wastes Control Act.

However, regarding the act of amputating the patient's leg in the hospital room, the police did not book them, judging that there are no penal provisions under the Medical Service Act and that it constituted legitimate medical practice by a licensed doctor.

This incident came to light after a human leg was discovered on June 10 at the Southern Metropolitan Living Resources Recovery Center located in Songdo-dong, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon.

At the time, the police launched an investigation keeping the possibility of a violent crime in mind, but after receiving a report from the nursing hospital, they determined that the leg matched that of a hospitalized patient at the facility.

The hospital was found to have amputated the leg of an hospitalized patient in their 80s suffering from severe necrosis, wrapped it in bandages, and mistakenly discarded it as recyclables.

(Photo: Yonhap News)