Remedy

You may ask, "Why don't we include the area next to the front door of the hospital, or to perform necessary emergency care when someone has a cardiac arrest ?"

On that you are wrong. It would be an endless argument to define how far from the door we should include, who to determine the cardiac arrest, and so forth.

For those who are familiar with the theory of administration or ethics, you would notice we are falling into the trap of a slippery slope. If we take care of a distance within 10 meters, why not 20 or 50 ? If we resuscitate someone with a cardiac arrest, do we need to take care of someone with a low blood pressure (which an ordinary receptionist may mistake as cardiac arrest) ? Then, we would next be forced to ask the poor receptionist to handle someone who simply has dizziness.

You open the Pandora box.

I believe that was in fact the reason in the mind of that poor hospital chief when he at first stood firm in front of the media.

PS. When I discussed the story with KM, I commented that the only effective means to prevent such an accident - while having receptionist of the current standard of intelligence - was to move the Information Desk next to the Emergency Department. That would solve one type of silly mishaps - unfortunately only amongst a billion possible types.