A 10-year-old child died in Busan after 12 hospitals refused emergency treatment over an 80-minute period, exposing the deadly consequences of South Korea's escalating medical workforce crisis.
The child, who suffered cardiac arrest, was transported by ambulance beginning at approximately 7:30 PM on a recent evening, according to local media reports. Paramedics contacted hospital after hospital, only to face repeated rejections as emergency rooms cited capacity constraints, staffing shortages, and liability concerns. By the time a facility finally accepted the patient, more than an hour had elapsed—time that proved fatal.
The tragedy has ignited public outrage and renewed scrutiny of what Koreans call 응급실 핑퐁 ("ER ping-pong")—the practice of emergency patients being shuttled between hospitals that refuse to admit them. The phenomenon has intensified dramatically since thousands of resident doctors walked off the job last year to protest government plans to expand medical school enrollment.
While the doctor strikes have formally ended, their legacy persists in understaffed emergency departments, overwhelmed intensive care units, and a pervasive culture of defensive medicine in which hospitals reject high-risk patients to avoid legal liability. South Korea's medical malpractice litigation environment—among the most contentious in developed Asia—has made emergency departments particularly risk-averse.
Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong acknowledged the systemic failures in a statement following the incident, promising an investigation into why multiple hospitals rejected the child. "This should never have happened," Cho stated. "We are examining whether hospitals violated their legal obligation to provide emergency care."
Yet legal obligations and operational reality have diverged sharply in Korea's healthcare system. Emergency rooms nationwide report chronic understaffing, with many departments operating at 60-70% of required physician levels. The government's push to increase medical school admissions by 2,000 seats annually—intended to address long-term workforce shortages—triggered the resident doctor exodus that exacerbated immediate capacity problems.
The Busan case follows a pattern of high-profile medical access tragedies. Last year, a pregnant woman in Seoul was rejected by nine hospitals before finally receiving care; both she and her baby survived, but the case sparked national debate about emergency care standards. In another incident, a stroke patient died after being rejected by seven hospitals in the Gyeonggi Province.
Public health experts warn that the crisis extends beyond individual tragedies. Emergency department rejection rates have climbed steadily, with data from the National Fire Agency showing that ambulances now spend an average of 12 minutes longer finding accepting hospitals compared to two years ago—a delay that can prove decisive in cardiac, stroke, and trauma cases.
"What we're seeing is a system under profound stress," said Dr. Kim Yoon-soo, an emergency medicine specialist at Seoul National University Hospital. "Hospitals are making risk calculations in real time—do we have the staff, the ICU beds, the specialists on call to handle this patient? When the answer is uncertain, the legal and financial risks of accepting the patient can outweigh the humanitarian imperative."
The defensive posture reflects Korea's unique medico-legal environment. Unlike neighboring Japan, where medical malpractice litigation remains relatively rare, South Korea has seen explosive growth in medical lawsuits over the past two decades. Emergency departments—where split-second decisions are made under chaotic conditions—face particularly high exposure.
The government has proposed reforms including expanding legal protections for emergency physicians, increasing emergency care reimbursement rates, and fast-tracking medical school expansion. But these measures will take years to meaningfully impact frontline capacity, while the immediate crisis continues to claim lives.
Opposition lawmakers have called for emergency legislation to impose mandatory acceptance requirements on hospitals with functioning emergency departments, coupled with financial penalties for unjustified rejections. The ruling People Power Party has resisted such measures, arguing they could drive more hospitals to close emergency departments entirely rather than face liability exposure.
In Korea, as across dynamic Asian economies, cultural exports and technological leadership reshape global perceptions—even as security tensions persist. Yet the Busan tragedy reveals how domestic policy failures can have consequences as devastating as any external threat. A healthcare system that powered Korea's transformation into a wealthy nation now struggles to provide the most basic emergency care to its children.
The 10-year-old's death has become a rallying cry for reform advocates who argue that Korea's medical workforce crisis requires urgent government intervention. As one Busan resident posted on social media: "We can build the world's best semiconductors and dominate K-pop globally, but we can't save a child having a heart attack. What kind of country have we become?"
