The Korea Labor Welfare Corporation announced on the 23rd that it had approved the death of Mr. Shim Mo of the US House as an industrial accident. It’s been one year and eight months since Shim died.
Shim, who was in charge of beautification work at the Seoul Medical Center, collapsed at his home in June 2019 at the age of 60, and died 12 hours after being transferred to the emergency room. The cause of death was an acute infection with pneumococcus.
The KCTU public transport union medical solidarity headquarters claimed that Shim worked every day for 12 days before his death. He said that he had to hire more people to work, but because he didn’t, there was a shortage of manpower, and he said that he had many other jobs besides his own. It was also pointed out that beautification workers at the Seoul Medical Center are at high risk of infection, such as being stabbed by contaminated injection needles in the process of sorting medical waste with only plastic gloves on work gloves without protective equipment.
However, the medical center has denied that Shim worked for 12 consecutive days and that he was exposed to the risk of infection with medical waste.
The Korea Labor Welfare Corporation raised Shim’s hand. According to the Medical Solidarity Headquarters, the Labor Welfare Corporation and the Institute for Occupational Environment surveyed Shim’s work environment and found that Shim’s death was highly related to medical waste infection. The reason was that Shim died of sepsis after being infected with pneumococcus, and that pneumococcus could be infected while disposing of hospital waste. Mr. Shim supported the waste disposal business from time to time, and it was said that it could be considered an industrial accident when considering the death of an acute infection in the midst of fatigue from continuous work.
The Medical Solidarity Headquarters said, “The state agency has acknowledged that the deceased died while working in an environment with high exposure to infection.”
