(LEAD) Number of ER patients drops 32 pct during Chuseok holiday

The number of patients who visited hospital emergency rooms dropped 32 percent during the Chuseok holiday, the health ministry said Thursday, assessing that there were no major disruptions in emergency care. A prolonged walkout by trainee doctors had fueled concerns about potential disruptions at hospital emergency rooms during the holiday, prompting the government to ask patients with mild illnesses to visit community hospitals. The average number of patients who visited emergency rooms stood at 26,983 during the holiday, down 32 percent from last year's Chuseok holiday. Also, the number of patients with mild illnesses who visited emergency rooms dropped 39 percent on-year during the holiday. "The emergency rooms were able to focus on treating critically ill patients as people with mild illness refrained from visiting," Jung Yoon-soon, a senior health ministry official, told reporters. "We would like to express our gratitude to medical officials who actively participated in efforts to safeguard the hea lth and lives of the people over the holiday," Jung said. But the Korean Medical Association (KMA), an association of community doctors, criticized the government's assessment about no major holiday disruptions in emergency services as "self-praise." "In the run-up to the Chuseok holiday, the government hiked medical payments by patients with mild symptoms and called for such patients to refrain from using emergency rooms. It took stop-gap measures that amounted to intimidation," the KMA said in a statement. Source: Yonhap News Agency