Workers at COVID-19 dedicated hospitals said they were burnt out at a time when the spread of COVID-19 reached an all-time high and their appeals continued in the press conference. In order to prevent manpower exhaustion, the Union urged the government to actively take steps to mandate hospitals’ compliance with the COVID-19 manpower standards established as a result of 9.2 Labor-Government Agreement. The Union also emphasized the need to actively review and promote the public takeover of private hospitals in preparation for the further increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The KHMU President Na Soon-ja pointed out, “We have talked many times about preparing beds and manpower ahead of Return to Normal stage, but the government rushed to start the Phased Return to Normal approach without full preparations. Now, they rush to issue administrative orders to secure beds as the number of confirmed patients is rapidly increasing. The reality is that even when hospital beds are secured, it is difficult to treat confirmed patients due to a shortage of manpower and this situation adversely affects the treatment of general patients.”

In the press conference statement, the KHMU urged: ▲ temporary suspension of Phased Return to Normal for 2 weeks ▲ Government-level reorganization of COVID-19/routine recovery control tower ▲ Increase the efficiency of bed operation, and strengthen administrative capacity to manage sick beds’ allocation ▲ Public-private joint response system for comprehensive medical care ▲ the publicization of private hospital beds like in Spain, ▲ and the thorough implementation of the 9.2 Health and Medical Union-Government Agreement

The government has been implementing Living With COVID-19 policy since November. Since then, even with fully vaccinated citizens reaching 82.0% out of the total population, the number of confirmed cases and death toll have increased significantly. A case in point is the 5,202 confirmed cases per day on December 20, the record high since the outbreak of COVID-19. In the past week, an average of 63 people died per day. The cumulative number of confirmed cases is 575,615 and the cumulative death toll is 4,828, up to today.

After an urgent appeal from the KHMU, the government announced measures to strengthen social distancing, including allowing gatherings of no more than four people for two weeks from December 18th. If the situation worsens, the government predicted that there could be about 10,000 confirmed cases per day in December and up to 20,000 in January next year.

KHMU_Newsletter-14(20211221).pdf