Medical workers in full protective gear care for COVID-19 patients at an intensive care unit of a COVID-only hospital in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, on Nov. 23, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — The government is being criticized for ordering the full transfer of patients struggling with severe symptoms from COVID-19 for longer than 20 days, a measure described by a number of healthcare workers as ineffective and inefficient.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare ordered 210 long-term COVID-19 patients hospitalized in 42 medical centers on Dec. 20 to be removed from quarantine beds and sent to non-quarantine hospital wards.
While these patients can stay in quarantine wards with proper justification, it creates an additional administrative workload for hospital employees.
Since patients in serious condition cannot leave the quarantine ward, the task of writing justifications falls on doctors and nurses.
Critics say that the 20-day limit for patients struggling with COVID-19 is a standard that has been designed without any consideration for the reality in hospital wards.
Based on this standard, patients who have struggled with COVID-19 for longer than 20 days but whose symptoms only worsened in less than seven days need to move to non-quarantine wards without receiving proper medical treatment.
“Most of the patients ordered to move out are either depending on respirators or receiving dialysis treatment, which makes it difficult to move them,” said an official from a university hospital in Seoul.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
