The government said it has issued an administrative order to secure an additional 1,094 beds at general hospitals in the Seoul metro region to prevent a possible increase in Covid-19 cases amid eased virus curb.
"As the number of patients increases, it is necessary to prepare in advance," said Lee Ki-il, a division chief at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters. "It will take hospitals four weeks to secure beds, so they need time to respond to the order in advance."
Under the administrative order, 22 tertiary general hospitals in the wider Seoul area must add 402 beds for patients with moderate- to severe-Covid-19, and 61 of the general hospitals and hospitals in the area with 200 to 299 beds must add 692 beds in combined total for moderately ill patients, the official said.
"Even with the beds to be secured through the administrative order, it is possible to handle only 7,000 confirmed cases a day," Lee said.
The government also issued a preliminary administrative order to secure more beds for critical patients at tertiary hospitals in the wider Seoul area, considering the trend in the number of confirmed cases and the utilization rate of beds. The government will implement the order after consultation with the local governments.
"We estimate that we will be able to handle up to 8,500 confirmed cases per day," Lee said. "If necessary, the government will try to secure beds to handle 10,000 patients."
However, private experts expressed concerns that the additionally secured beds would increase the burden on medical workers.
"Nurses can't work at an intensive care unit unless they undergo four to five years of training," said Yeom Ho-ki, professor of Internal Medicine at Inje University Seoul Paik Hospital, who heads a committee tasked with drawing up Covid-19 countermeasures at the Korea Medical Association. "First of all, it is necessary to recruit dedicated personnel for critically ill patients and establish a system to manage such patients by forming a team of professional medical personnel."
If the government expands hospital beds without such preparations, there may arise a situation where the hospital cannot treat critically ill patients, Yeom added.
Other experts agreed.
"Although large hospitals have the workforce to spare, professors and full-time doctors responsible for treating critically ill patients are having a hard time as they have been working around the clock for a long time." Said Professor Suh Gee-young of the Department of Intensive and Critical Care at Samsung Medical Center,
Smaller hospitals with a shortage of staff will face even more difficult situations, Suh added.
In response, the government said that it would help to beef up the workforce much as possible.
"We have requested hospitals to mobilize as many medical professionals as possible," Lee said. "If there is a shortage, the government will recruit and dispatch more medical personnel to them."
Again, however, private experts pointed out that it would not be easy to put medical personnel recruited by the government into medical fields.
"In reality, there are many difficulties in taking care of critically ill patients with external medical staff," Professor Hong Suk-kyung at Asan Medical Center said. "In the end, hospitals will have to make the most of in-house medical personnel in charge of non-Covid-19 patients, which will inevitably disrupt other processes and cause a shortage in surgical workers.”
Even if the government secures the treatment space, the problem with the lack of manpower is not resolved, so it is necessary to form a national consensus on the inevitable decline in the quality of medical care, Hong added.
Korea's daily Covid-19 tally stayed above 2,300 for the third consecutive day on Friday.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 2,344 new virus cases, including 2,324 local infections, raising the cumulative caseload to 375,464 as of midnight Friday. Twenty more people died from the virus, raising the death toll to 2,936 with a fatality rate of 0.78 percent.
The health authorities warned virus cases could continue to trend upward again.
Korea had activated the first of the three-stage scheme to gradually phase out coronavirus restrictions as more than 70 percent of the population completed vaccination on Monday.
Under the latest measure effective for four weeks, restrictions on business hours of cafes, restaurants, and other businesses were fully lifted, except for nightlife establishments, and the private gathering limit was raised to 10 people for the greater Seoul area.
The government has vaccinated 41,398,611 people – 11,109,414 with the AstraZeneca vaccine, 22,159,339 with Pfizer's vaccine, 1,487,544 with Janssen's vaccine, 6,582,267 with Moderna's vaccine – with the first shot of the vaccine up 60,047 from the previous day.
As of Friday, 76.1 percent of Koreans were fully vaccinated, while 80.6 percent have received their first shots.