Two hospitals were ordered in a first-instance ruling to pay 400 million won in damages to the family of a 4-year-old child who died after being shuttled between emergency rooms. The court found the hospitals refused to accept the patient into their emergency rooms without a valid reason.
According to the legal community and the Korea Alliance of Patients Organization on the 16th, the Busan District Court's Western Branch Civil Division 1 (Presiding Judge Kim Dong-hee) ruled the previous day in a damages lawsuit filed by the bereaved family of the late Kim Dong-hee against two hospitals.
In Oct. 2019, Kim underwent a tonsillectomy at Hospital A in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang. Afterward, bleeding from the surgical site led the family to take him to the emergency room at Hospital B in Busan. The on-call night physician at Hospital B did not provide emergency treatment and handed Kim over to a 119 ambulance.
When Kim lost consciousness, 119 paramedics contacted the pediatric emergency room at Hospital A. The hospital refused, saying, "There is an emergency patient undergoing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, so it would be better to go to another hospital." Kim was then transferred to another hospital 20 kilometers away but did not regain consciousness. He received life-sustaining treatment and died in March the following year. Meanwhile, a police investigation found that at the time, there was no patient in Hospital A's emergency room in such critical condition as to justify refusing Kim's treatment.
The court said, "The joint tort of Hospital A, which refused treatment without a justifiable reason, and Hospital B, which handed the patient to 119 without proper care, is recognized." The Korea Alliance of Patients Organization noted it was "a symbolic ruling recognizing liability for damages over shuttling between emergency rooms."
Earlier, physicians from Hospital A and Hospital B were fined in criminal trials. In Oct. last year, the Ulsan District Court fined Hospital A and its pediatric emergency room physician 10 million won and 5 million won, respectively, on charges of violating the Emergency Medical Service Act. The physician at Hospital B, indicted for violating the Medical Service Act, was fined 5 million won.