Critically ill patients climb, hospital beds filling up

Social Affairs

Published: 08 Mar. 2022, 19:08 Updated: 08 Mar. 2022, 19:49

Critically ill patients climb, hospital beds filling up

Paramedics and medical staff transfer a Covid-19 patient at Seoul Medical Center in Jungnang District, eastern Seoul, on Tuesday. [NEWS1]

Critical cases of Covid-19 crossed the 1,000-mark for the first time in two months Tuesday, threatening a return to last year's hospital bed crisis.

The country reported 202,721 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), down 7,995 from the previous day, but up 63,731 from a week ago.

An increase in critical cases is pushing hospitals to their limits.

The number of Covid-19 patients in critical condition — referring to those who require oxygen treatment (such as high-flow oxygen therapy), mechanical ventilation (being put on a respirator), extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) or continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) — climbed to 1,007 as of Monday midnight, 52 more than the day before. Of them, people in their 60s or older accounted for 84.4 percent, or 850 people.

The figure is getting closer to the government’s forecast of critically ill patients rising over 1,200 by Wednesday, and reaching between 1,700 and 2,750 in mid- to late-March.

Critical cases peaked on Dec. 29 at 1,151 cases. Since Jan. 14, the number subsided into the triple digits, but shot back up to over 1,000 following a surge in infections.

The country added 186 more fatalities on Tuesday, raising the death toll to 9,282.

With critical cases growing, concerns were raised that a hospital bed shortage could be repeated, as at the peak of the Delta wave in December. The intensive care bed occupancy rate once soared over 90 percent, with patients dying while waiting to be allocated beds.

Of the 2,751 Covid-19 intensive care beds across the country, 59.6 percent, or 1,640 beds, were occupied as of Monday midnight, the KDCA said.

Besides the 1,007 critically-ill patients announced by the government, the rest of the beds were being used by very ill patients with underlying conditions, such as strokes, angina, and kidney problems, that were made worse by Covid.

The government maintained that the medical system is “currently being operated within the manageable range,” saying it could handle “up to 2,500 critical patients if hospital beds are managed efficiently.”

“We haven’t perceived an atmosphere [of an oversaturation of hospital beds] even after having a meeting with on-site medical workers,” Son Young-rae, senior epidemiological strategist at the Central Disaster Management Headquarters, said during a briefing on Tuesday. “As statistics show, there is about 40 percent availability at intensive care units nationwide.”

The government expanded its “Step-Down” strategy for hospital beds for moderate-to-severe Covid-19 patients on March 4 and is moving them to general beds if they are not in need of oxygen treatment. The government implemented the strategy on Dec. 20 in Covid-19 I.C.U.s.

Seoul National University Hospital and Asan Medical Center are already treating Covid-19 patients in general wards if they are asymptomatic or show mild symptoms. Previously, they were moved to isolation wards, but that became difficult following the spike in critical cases.

To deal with absences of infected medical personnel, more and more large and university hospitals are shortening the isolation period for infected medical personnel from seven to five days under the government’s Business Continuity Planning (BCP).

In addition, the government said it will also hold talks on setting priorities for I.C.U. admission with the National Medical Center‘s committee for clinical management of emerging disease control.

Authorities said they are dispatching an additional 206 army doctors to treat critically ill patients next week.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]