The total number of pregnant women who had to be transported a distance of more than 20 kilometers from the scene to the hospital stood at 4,315 over the past three years. (Image courtesy of Yonhap News)
SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Korea Bizwire) – Lee Dae-eun (38), from Namhae County, South Gyeongsang Province, still feels a sense of dizziness when he recalls the day in June 2021 when his wife abruptly experienced labor pains two months before the due date of their third child.
Due to the absence of a maternity clinic in Namhae County, Lee’s wife, en route to Jinju in South Gyeongsang Province via a 119 ambulance, gave birth in the ambulance before reaching the hospital. Upon arriving at the maternity hospital, the couple was informed that their premature infant needed to be placed in an incubator. They were then advised to go to a tertiary hospital.
As a result, Lee’s wife and the baby had to transfer once more from a university hospital in downtown Jinju, as the hospital’s incubators were already occupied by infants infected with COVID-19. Only after arriving at a university hospital in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, could Lee’s baby be safely placed in an incubator.
On that day, Lee’s wife and the baby had to travel a distance of about 200 kilometers. In an emergency situation where every second counts, they spent about two hours on the road.
According to the data received on Sunday by Oh Young-hwan, a Democratic Party lawmaker and member of the National Assembly’s Administration Safety Committee, from the National Fire Agency’s 119 Emergency Department, the total number of pregnant women who had to be transported a distance of more than 20 kilometers from the scene to the hospital stood at 4,315 over the past three years.
By year, the number of such pregnant women was 1,182 in 2020, 1,252 in 2021 and 1,881 last year, averaging over 1,400 annually.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
