A Report on the Environment and the Present Condition of Local Emergency Medical Facilities in Gwangju and Jeollanam-do

Choung, Dae You; Cho, Soo Hyung; Kim, Seong Jung

Abstract

PURPOSE: Regional and local emergency medical centers are supported and evaluated by the government, but local emergency medical facilities have not done very well. This research was started to aid in the improvement of local emergency medical centers by examining the present condition of medical treatment at those facilities and to indentify problems with the primary emergency medical service.
METHODS
This research targeted head nurses at the emergency rooms of 42 hospitals out of 48 local emergency medical facilities in Gwangju and Jeollanam-do, who answered our survey, asked them about the actual condition of day and night duty in the emergency rooms, the present conditions of the hospitals and plans for the future development and analyzed the results.
RESULTS
1)Questions about the present conditions of hospitals: An average of 8.2 nurses were working in emergency rooms, 11.9 patients per day visited during the day, and 18.3 at night. Only 5 hospitals had emergency medical specialists, and the most serious problem in the management of emergency rooms was a shortage of proper medical manpower. 2)Questions about day duty:In 34.7% of the cases, specialists on staff were in charge of day-time medical treatment in emergency rooms and 33.3% of the emergency rooms had no workers in charge. There were many cases for which rapid medical treatment was not done when emergency rooms were called out during the days. 3)Questions about night duty: As to the types of night time medical treatment at emergency rooms, general doctors worked with medical specialists on back-up duty in 54.7% of the emergency rooms, medical specialists worked alone in 31.0%, and general doctors worked alone in 14.3%. those in charge of night duty were public health doctors or army surgeons (23.9%), general doctors (28.6%) and physicians (47.5%) who belong to hospitals. 4)Questions about future plans: All of the respondents answered that the present working system in emergency rooms needed to be changed, and 85.7% of them answered that they needed medical specialists who majored in emergency medicine.
CONCLUSION
In local emergency medical facilities, specialists on staff were for in charge of day-time medical treatment. There were many cases in which general doctors were on night duty with medical specialists on back-up duty or medical specialists were on duty. Many hospitals needed medical specialists who majored in emergency medical science and plan future improvement in manpower.