South Korean prosecutors order police to reinvestigate 2024 hospital blood transfusion death

South Korean prosecutors have asked police to reinvestigate the death of a woman who received an incompatible blood transfusion at a Seoul hospital in 2024, after police closed the case without charges last month.

The Seoul Northern District Prosecutors’ Office asked the Seongbuk Police Station to conduct further inquiries, saying additional facts needed to be established before the case could be concluded. Police plan to reopen the investigation.

The woman, in her 50s, was taken to the emergency room of a university hospital in Seoul after going into cardiac arrest in September 2024.

Hospital staff gave her type A blood after a test identified her as having that blood type. She was later found to have type O blood.

Police found that barcodes attached to blood samples from the woman and another patient had been mixed up, resulting in the other patient’s sample being sent for testing under her name.

The error was discovered after her blood type was tested again during a subsequent transfusion.

The woman’s condition worsened, and she died about a month later. Her family filed a criminal complaint against the medical staff, accusing them of professional negligence resulting in death.

Police acknowledged that failures by emergency room nurses to properly verify the samples had contributed to the transfusion error. They nevertheless concluded that it was difficult to establish criminal liability or a direct causal link between the error and the woman’s death.

Police cited her serious condition, including cardiac arrest and pulmonary embolism, as well as severe hospital understaffing during the resident doctors’ walkout.

Prosecutors requested the reinvestigation after determining that further examination was needed into whether the medical staff breached their duty of care and whether the transfusion error contributed directly to the patient’s death.

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