The MERS incident, which occurred in South Korea, in 2015, resulted in a total failure of communication, according to Soon-Joo Wang, a professor of Medicine from the Republic of Korea. Last year, 186 MERS-CoV cases were associated with the virus outbreak, including 36 that resulted in death.
Wang, who is also the president of the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine, was one of the participants in last week’s Asia Emergency Management Conference
The expert argued that there was a lack of communication between the victims and health authorities in South Korea, which resulted in poor medical assistance being provided to those who required it. According to him, there was overcrowding in one or two hospitals, while other medical care centers remained empty.
Wang also claimed that citizens expect too much from their government, which has historically provided inefficient responses in the aftermath of a disaster.
Soon Joo Wang
Soon-Joo Wang said that the most efficient way to deal with potential deadly diseases is to teach people how to act, noting that the key for improvement lies in education. “We ought to teach citizens to learn how to help themselves,” argued Wang, emphasizing that communication between government and citizens is crucial.
The expert stated that after years of handling disasters, the Korean government has made some improvements to their responses. However, he said that one of the most crucial things is the change in culture, an idea which was pointed out to him by Harald Drager, the president of the International Emergency Management Society.
Drager exemplified his point with the story of the 2014 Korea ferry tragedy that Wang recounted during his lecture. The Norwegian expressed that the disaster happened partially as a result of the Korean culture, which praises the saying “respect the parents and the masters,” referring to students obeying their captain’s order, even when the order is clearly wrong.
In 2014, more than 200 people died in a ferry disaster that deeply rattled the country. Korea’s top court last year upheld a life sentence for the captain of the ferry, because he fled his ship without giving an evacuation order. Staff reporter
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