SEOUL: South Korean authorities are investigating a nursing hospital in Seoul after a patient’s severed toe was found in a refrigerator in the facility’s kitchen.
The toe had been placed in a disposable porridge container and kept in the fridge for about two weeks, alongside drinks and condiments, until the patient’s family visited and found it, a KBS report revealed on Aug 19.
It reportedly belonged to a man in his 60s with an intellectual disability who had been living at the hospital for 10 years.
The family said they learned in March that one of his toes had become detached. When they called the hospital, staff members told them the man had fallen while being moved in a wheelchair for a bath, causing a toe already affected by skin necrosis to come off.
The patient’s family said they had not been informed that he had been diagnosed with a foot ulcer, even though it had been documented in the hospital’s nursing records since December.
South Korea’s Waste Control Act requires medical waste to be kept in designated containers. Storing human tissue together with food may also violate food sanitation regulations.
The hospital, however, said it did not have a container suitable for storing the toe, adding that a nurse had kept it in the refrigerator to respond to the situation urgently.
Following the report, the Health Ministry said it would ask the local government to conduct an administrative investigation into the hospital. - The Korea Herald/ANN
