71% of Newly Opened Clinics Concentrated in the Seoul Metropolitan Area... Clear Disparity in Number of Doctors

Over the past five years, 71% of clinic-level medical institutions have opened in the Seoul metropolitan area. Additionally, 35% of hospital-level and above medical institutions opened in Gyeonggi Province.

According to the National Health Insurance Service's "Regional Medical Usage Statistical Yearbook" released on the 10th, as of last year, there were 34,958 clinic-level medical institutions excluding dental clinics and Korean medicine clinics, an increase of 3,240 from 31,718 in 2018.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

During this period, 1,095 clinics opened in Seoul, marking the largest increase. Clinics newly opened in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon accounted for 2,303, representing 71.1% of the total.

Hospital-level and above medical institutions, including tertiary general hospitals, general hospitals, and hospitals, also mainly opened in metropolitan areas including the Seoul metropolitan area.

As of last year, there were 228 hospital-level and above medical institutions nationwide excluding long-term care hospitals, an increase of 210 from 10,818 in 2018. Gyeonggi Province saw the largest increase with 73 new institutions, accounting for 35% of the total.

The disparity in the number of doctors by region was also evident. Last year, there were 2.12 doctors per 1,000 people in South Korea. Seoul had the highest number of doctors with 3.35 per 1,000 people, which is 2.6 times higher than Sejong, the region with the lowest number at 1.28 per 1,000 people.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.