Reported by Yeo-Kyung Yoon, Maeil Ilbo / Feb 03, 2020
Cheorwon-gun Public Postpartum Care Center, Cheorwon Hospital's Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic opens its doors.
Since 2017, Cheorwon-gun, Gangwon-do, has made various efforts to improve the vulnerable prenatal and postpartum infrastructure. An example of this is the development of the Cheorwon-gun Public Postpartum Care Center, which is currently in the department of "Maternity Obstetrics and Gynecology" at Cheorwon Hospital. Newly opening its doors, the public postpartum care center, built at a cost of 3.9 million dollars, plans to operate with its first and second floors as postpartum care centers and the third floor as accommodations for medical personnel.
The Cheorwon-gun Public Postpartum Care Center includes a total of 10 rooms that have the capacity to accommodate twins. Pre-observations rooms will be set up so that a newborn's body temperature, urine and feces can be carefully monitored to ensure that there is no risk of infection before the newborn is placed into infant rooms.
To increase intimacy between the mother and the baby during breastfeeding as well as to form a relationship with the father, infant rooms will operate as mother-child rooms, while a post-partum center will be available to the public from February 24th.
The director of the postpartum care center, Heo Eun, has more than 30 years of experience in the obstetrics and gynecology field and nurses, who have had substantial work experience in post-partum centers, are joining to operate a more professional and safe postpartum care center.
With better facilities than the Seoul metropolitan area at a more affordable cost, the Cheorwon-gun Public Postpartum Care Center is expected to receive a positive response from the public.
The facility will contain pregnant women's rooms, education rooms, red clay rooms, massage rooms, and shampoo rooms. To prevent infiltration of infections, family visits are planned to be restricted. However, HoneyNaps’ HoneyCube will be installed in infants' and toddlers' rooms so that families can see the baby on their cell phones at any time.
In addition, Cheorwon-gun and Cheorwon Hospital applied for and selected a childbirth vulnerability site support project in 2017 by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and are building the latest delivery obstetrics and gynecology department with a project cost of 1.86 million dollars, and are also purchasing state-of-the-art medical equipment such as ultrasound diagnostic devices.
Currently only one obstetrician is working at the hospital, but one additional obstetrician has been hired to strengthen expertise. The newly hired manager, Han Kyung-hak (obstetrics and gynecology specialist), a graduate of Yonsei University, has more than 35 years of obstetrics and gynecology experience including serving as a director of Woosung Women’s Hospital.
With Han’s strengthened medical background, the administration plans to open an outpatient gynecology department from February 2020.
A local government official has commented that pregnant women have suffered a lot of inconvenience in prenatal and postpartum care due to the lack of obstetrics and gynecologists available in Cheorwon. With construction expected to be completed in May 2020, pregnant women will no longer have to resort to traveling to large cities such as Seoul and Uijeongbu.