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A temporary screening center in front of Inchang Hospital in Busan on Dec. 14. (Yonhap News)

The shortage of hospital beds appears likely to continue for the time being as South Korea faces its worst crisis since the COVID-19 pandemic began. On Dec. 13, the South Korean government announced plans to acquire 2,260 new ordinary beds and 287 beds for patients in critical condition, but implementing them is expected to take as long as three weeks. Healthcare practitioners are voicing fears that the coming week could end up becoming “the most dangerous yet.”

Precarious situations have also been taking place, including one patient in their 90s complaining of breathing difficulties while waiting for at home for a hospital bed after testing positive, as well as another patient kept on standby for over a day without being transported to a dedicated infectious disease hospital after testing positive at a general emergency room.

According to accounts on Dec. 14 from healthcare workers and a public health center in Gyeonggi Province, a COVID-19 patient in their 90s experienced a rapid worsening of symptoms including breathing difficulties the day before while waiting at home for over 24 hours after testing positive. Fortunately, the province was able to acquire a bed at a dedicated infectious disease hospital for the patient. An emergency services worker who helped to transport the patient said their “condition had deteriorated severely.”

Healthcare practitioners predicted more urgent situations like this one could continue arising as the hospital bed shortage persists. As of Dec. 14, the number of patients in critical condition had risen to 185. The first COVID-19 outbreak in February and March also saw cases of elderly patients whose symptoms rapidly worsened while they were waiting at home for hospital space.

The dangers associated with a shortage of hospital beds have been manifesting in multiple ways. On Dec. 12, a general hospital in Gyeonggi Province administered a COVID-19 test to an emergency room patient who exhibited high fever symptoms. The patient eventually tested positive, but the hospital had difficulty finding any dedicated hospital beds where they could be transferred. As a result, the patient ended up staying at the hospital for over two days.

“Ordinarily, the transportation process in cases like this is completed within half a day, and we’ve been able to protect everyone, including the COVID and non-COVID patients and the healthcare workers,” the hospital explained. “Now you can’t find hospital beds anywhere.”

As of Dec. 13, the dedicated infectious disease hospital operation rates were 89.9% for Seoul (1,070 out of 1,190) and 87.1% for Gyeonggi (581 out of 667). As of Dec. 14, the number of patients who had been waiting at home for two days or more stood at 218: 59 in Seoul, 14 in Incheon, and 145 in Gyeonggi. Eighty-nine percent of them — 194 patients — were waiting for hospital beds rather than the community treatment center spaces reserved for patients with mild to no symptoms.

“In Gyeonggi Province, the total number of people waiting at home as of Dec. 14 was down to 308 from 341 on Dec. 9, but the number of people waiting who required hospitalization rose from 80 to 223 over the same period,” explained Gyeonggi Provincial Medical Center Ansung Hospital Director Im Seung-gwan, co-director of the province’s COVID-19 emergency countermeasures team.

“There are more community treatment centers where patients with mild to no symptoms can go, but it’s difficult to find beds in hospitals,” Im explained. Gyeonggi currently has healthcare workers and government staff to monitor patients waiting at home, but calls for hospital bed allocation have reportedly grown more frequent.

Acquiring hospital beds for patients in severe condition is a top priority to reduce the risk of deaths. But the 287 new beds the government plans to acquire will be added in phases over the next three weeks. The Central Disaster Management Headquarters (CDMH) announced that 70 new beds for severe patients will be acquired from Dec. 14 to 20. Another 130 are to be added the following week, and 87 during the last week of December. In the case of dedicated “base hospitals,” where all or some beds are to be kept free for severe cases, two of them (70 beds at Pyeongtaek Bagae Hospital, 10 at Seongnam Citizens Medical Center) are to begin operating between Dec. 21 and 27, while three more (19 beds at the National Medical Center, 13 at Ilsan Hospital, and 40 at a private hospital in Gyeonggi Province) are to begin operating between Dec. 28 and Jan. 2.

“The government is taking steps toward resolving the problem with its plans to acquire a large number of beds at national and public hospitals, including veterans’ and police hospitals and the NHIS Ilsan Hospital,” Im Seung-gwan said.

“But with the facility construction and patient transportation process expected to take one to three weeks for the different hospitals, the shortage of hospital beds will continue for the near future,” he predicted.

While the acquisition of hospital beds is expected to take some time, the number of patients in critical condition has been rising at a rapid rate. As of Dec. 13, the number of beds available for severe cases stood at 48 nationally, with just eight in the Seoul Capital Area (SCA). In contrast, the number of new confirmed cases over the past week totaled 4,824. With statistics showing that around 3% of patients will typically develop severe to critical symptoms within five to 10 days, the number of patients in severe to critical condition could increase by 145 this week alone.

“Based on the current trend, we could see an increase of 10 severe to critical cases per day in Greater Seoul alone,” predicted Ju Yeong-su, director of the National Medical Center’s planning and coordination team. “The 70 hospital beds we’re acquiring this week won’t be enough.”

Kim Yoon, a professor of health management at the Seoul National University medical school, said, “The rate at which we’re acquiring beds is falling behind the rate of cases of being diagnosed.”

“This could end up being a very dangerous week where we see cases of surplus deaths,” he warned.

By Choi Ha-yan and Suh Hye-mi, staff reporters

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