13 Hospitals Rejected For Two Hours, Vietnamese Women Give Birth In Ambulance

JAKARTA - A woman with Vietnamese citizenship who will give birth at Incheon International Airport, South Korea, gave birth in an ambulance after spending two hours looking for a hospital that would accept her, firefighters said Monday.

The 31-year-old woman was reported to have fainted at Terminal 1 of Incheon International Airport at around 12:20 a.m. on Sunday, according to Incheon's fire headquarters.

Emergency services from Yeongjong Fire Station moved him to Inha University Hospital in Incheon, but the hospital refused to treat him, citing a lack of obstetricians, quoted from The Korea Times March 13.

After 13 hospitals in the western port city refused to treat him, emergency services searched for hospitals in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province.

Many hospitals asked the rescue team how long their pregnancy was, but due to language problems, this information was not available, so they refused to accept it.

While waiting in the ambulance in front of Inha University Hospital, the pregnant woman began to experience severe stomach pain and her escape broke.

As a result, firefighters prepared to make an emergency delivery by ambulance and managed to give birth to a baby boy at 14:33, two hours and 13 minutes after receiving the report.

"We had an emergency delivery by ambulance due to severe childbirth while looking for another hospital," said an official at Incheon's fire headquarters.

"The mother and newborn were transferred to the Inha University Hospital for treatment," he added.

It remains unclear whether the woman is a Korean visitor or a permanent resident.

It is known that the Korean health care system is in crisis as thousands of young doctors have been on strike since February last year, protesting the government's plan to increase the quota of medical schools to address the shortage of pediatricians, obstetricians, emergency medicine, and toract surgery.

The strike has caused significant disruption in hospital services, leading to widespread delays in common agreements and frequent rejections in emergency rooms.