A nurse working with COVID-19 patients in this southeastern city was found dead in an apparent suicide this week, her family and labor union said Wednesday, blaming her death on depression from overwork.

The 33-year-old woman, identified only by her surname Lee, worked at a public health center in Busan before she was found dead at her home on Sunday morning.

Her family said she had recently been assigned to manage a local hospital that was placed under cohort isolation following an outbreak of COVID-19 there, even though it was not her job.

"In conversations with her colleagues on KakaoTalk, it appeared that the health center employees had an order in which they took turns handling hospitals in cohort isolation," a family member said on condition of anonymity, referring to a chatting app. "But it appears that she was forced to take on the job because she was good at it."

The family claimed that colleagues pressed her to work at the hospital and suggested she would put them in a tricky situation if she refused. They also asked her repeatedly to work on weekends.

"In the end, she went to work on Saturday and finished at 8 p.m.," the family member said. "Her husband then took out his exhausted wife to help her refresh, but she was found dead the next morning." (Yonhap)