By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-17 07:11:36 | Updated at 2025-03-17 10:45:55
3 hours ago
A Vietnamese woman has given birth in a South Korean ambulance after paramedics struggled to find a hospital willing to treat her, highlighting the worsening impact of a doctors’ strike that has left the country’s emergency services overwhelmed.
The Vietnamese national, a woman in her thirties identified by the media as Ms A, gave birth to a boy in an ambulance on Sunday after being refused treatment at several hospitals, South Korean media reported.
She was first reported to the authorities to have collapsed at the Incheon International Airport near Seoul. Paramedics arrived and found it difficult to communicate with her, and presumed she was complaining of abdominal pain.
Paramedics then brought her to Inha University Hospital, some 30km away from the airport, only to be informed that the hospital could not provide gynaecological or obstetric treatments, citing a lack of medical workers, daily newspaper Hankyoreh reported.
Other nearby hospitals also informed the paramedics about various difficulties in accepting the patient.
Rescuers then contacted the emergency management centre and asked about the availability of hospitals in the Seoul and Gyeonggi areas.
