On October 8th, the government announced that entended care- at-home treatment would broadly put in place for asymptomatic and light COVID patients under the age of 70 whose condition is not necessarily severe. This is mainly for easing the burden on the medical system if asymptomatic and light patient numbers surge all of a sudden. On October 21st, however, receiving home treatment, a confirmed patient in his 60s died suddenly. The case brought netizens receiving the extended care into showing concern about it. Then, why is the concern regarding home care growing?

   A sense of concern can be discovered in staff being overloaded with work. “We currently hired ten short-term nurses, but there are as many as 150 patients receiving home treatment a day, causing manpower to be lacking in the afternoon,” said one official at a public health center. Shin Su-Min (Staff, Busan Geumjeong-gu Health Center Infectious Disease Control Team) said, “If you are able to go on with your daily life, the way patients are being treated is switched to nursing themselves at home, and the health center oversees them. However, it has a slew of tasks, including triage, but no additional human resources are provided. Such cases trickled into not only the health care center but also in the autonomous district of Seoul. Geumcheon-gu is seeing four nurses tending to as many as 40 patients. A few days ago, it stretched the number of employees from only two to four, but the results are still rudimentary. An official from B Autonomous Region said, “we are in over our head taking up assuming new tasks with established human resources distributed.

   The second cause of concern owes partly to the confusion about the designation of an affiliated hospital monitoring patients’ health conditions. An affiliated hospital monitors their condition and, in an emergency, sends them to infectious hospitals as the health care center assigns them. According to Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, ten local governments, including Seoul and Busan, should designate medical institutions in the jurisdiction as the affiliated hospitals and care for patients as opposed to Gyeonggi and Incheon, where they set up their own nursing team and monitor. However, the public health center is asking affiliated hospitals for hospitalization facilities due to excessive work: verifying the health, delivering medicine and medical devices, and supervising confirmed patients if they are self-quarantined. An official from the medical community argued, “I applied for the affiliated hospital but, unlike the government guidelines, the public health center is putting off the designation of an affiliated hospital, demanding short-term hospitalization facilities with *Negative Pressure Isolation Room (NPIR) so that confirmed patients can receive hospital treatment one to two days.” What is more, the criteria for setting affiliated hospitals remained problematic. In an autonomous district in Seoul, there was a case that a seasoned hospital that had operated a respiratory clinic and cultivated experiences in infectious disease failed to become the affiliated hospital as the spinal hospitals were selected. An official from the medical community said, “In some regions, even if hospitals do not have pediatricians, they are regarded as the affiliated hospital to monitor patients. No matter how asymptomatic or mild, there are obvious features of young children. However, I grow concerned that they will shrug off the professional part.” 

   Last but not least, the poor health monitoring system adds to the sentiment. For safe home care, a monitoring system is unavoidable to provide transfer to medical institutions in case of an emergency quickly. When at-home treatment is implemented, affiliated hospitals designated by local governments are supposed to verify the condition of the subjects twice a day, in the morning and afternoon. In practice, the reality was far from it. On October 6th, an Internet cafe displayed, “I have a 21-month-old child and husband confirmed and treated at home, and Seoul National University Hospital said they would conrm their conditions twice a day, but I have not heard from them since the first call.” Moreover, the monitoring system conveys a whiff of limitation about managing the moment when a patient’s condition deteriorates and it breaks out simultaneously. Furthermore, countermeasures such as managing when a patient’s condition deteriorates and urgent cases outbreaks at the same time are still limited. In accordance with one expert, it is pivotal to get in touch with medical staff to be observed in case patients have difficulty breathing and an attack of fever, but they are not capable of reaching them.

   Choi Byung-Kwan (Local Administrative Policy Officer, Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters) said "We need to prepare specific guidelines related to home treatment with experts in advance to prevent concerns about home treatment."