A patient who was 24 weeks pregnant reported abdominal pain and bleeding in Cheongju, but paramedics could not immediately find a hospital able to accept her. They contacted 34 hospitals nationwide, including Chungbuk National University Hospital. A Seoul hospital about 130 kilometers away agreed to take her after roughly one hour and 50 minutes, and she arrived about three hours after the emergency call.
An earlier Cheongju case involved a patient who was 29 weeks pregnant and needed an emergency delivery and specialist neonatal treatment. No suitable regional hospital was found, and she was flown about 270 kilometers to Busan for surgery. The fetus died.
In Daejeon, labor intensified while paramedics sought a hospital for a high-risk patient who was 21 weeks pregnant. Following medical guidance, the emergency crew delivered the baby inside the ambulance. The newborn went into cardiac arrest while being transferred to a hospital in Sejong and later died.
Longer transfers amid fewer delivery institutions
The cases sit alongside broader measures of transfer distance and delay. During the first half of 2026, 255 maternity patients were transported by emergency services to hospitals at least 50 kilometers away. Transfers taking one hour or longer rose from 508 in 2024 to 635 in 2025. These figures measure different aspects of the problem and cannot be treated as the same group of patients.
Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service data show that the number of institutions providing delivery care fell from 620 in 2015 to 436 in 2025, a decline of 29.7 percent. Among 1,571 hospital- and clinic-level obstetrics and gynecology providers nationwide, only 260 had performed deliveries. The reported aging of obstetricians and shortage of younger regional specialists further restrict the pool of hospitals able to provide emergency delivery and premature newborn care together, leaving paramedics to search farther afield when local capacity is unavailable.