[Inside Chodong]Will Building More Hospitals Revitalize Healthcare?

As the local elections in June approach, pledges to attract university hospitals and establish new medical schools are once again emerging across the country. The stated reasons are to address gaps in regional healthcare and to establish emergency medical systems. Judging by the promises made by candidates from both ruling and opposition parties, it almost feels as though large-scale general hospitals will soon be within a 30-minute distance from anywhere in Korea.

In South Jeolla Province, Mokpo and Suncheon are fiercely competing to attract a national medical school. There is even a proposal to "separately establish" campuses and affiliated hospitals in the eastern and western regions, respectively. This suggestion to build two university hospitals in a local government area with a population of 1.8 million may be a political strategy to somehow resolve local conflict, but no one has provided a responsible answer regarding the operational efficiency or financial self-reliance plans for such facilities.

Elsewhere, there are pledges to expand national medical schools and public hospitals in Jemulpo (Incheon), Gongju (South Chungcheong Province), Namwon (North Jeolla Province), and Andong (North Gyeongsang Province). In Namyangju (Gyeonggi Province) and Chungju (North Chungcheong Province), plans to attract tertiary general hospitals have been announced. In North Gyeongsang Province, there is a proposal to establish a medical school and a national strategic hospital centered around Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), while in Ulsan, the idea of founding a graduate school of medicine within Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has been discussed.

The reason why candidates are rushing to promise the establishment of general hospitals and medical schools is clear. In a reality where it has become commonplace for severe patients to wander from emergency room to emergency room in search of a doctor, or for expectant mothers to travel long distances to give birth, expanding regional healthcare is directly linked to the survival of local residents. Furthermore, for local voters, university hospitals are increasingly seen as not just medical facilities but as core infrastructure that enhances regional value. As a result, every candidate and region is competitively packaging the attraction of large hospitals and medical schools as symbols of local development, and voters are swayed by the promise of "bigger hospitals, better medical schools."

However, no matter how large the hospital, without sufficient patient demand, adequate medical staff, and stable operating funds, sustainability cannot be guaranteed. This is why, in some regions, ambitious hospital projects have suffered deficits after opening or have even failed at the planning stage. Moreover, the establishment of a medical school is not something a local government can decide on its own. Legally, it requires government approval, allocation of student quotas, and verification of educational infrastructure, making it difficult to complete within the four-year term of a local government head.

Above all, simply increasing the supply of hospitals does not immediately resolve disparities in healthcare access. The fundamental causes of medical inequality lie not just in the lack of medical facilities, but in structural issues such as the concentration of personnel, avoidance of essential medical fields, and poor working conditions for medical staff. Building another university hospital does not guarantee the stable retention of essential medical personnel in the provinces. On the contrary, there are concerns that it may drain staff from nearby small and medium-sized hospitals, leading to further regional imbalances.

This is why voters need to be more discerning. When promises are made to build medical schools and hospitals, questions such as "Where will the funding come from?", "Has there been coordination with the central government?", and "How will the issues of faculty and affiliated hospitals be resolved?" must be raised.

The anxieties felt in local communities regarding regional and essential healthcare are certainly real, but voters should not trade their votes for unfulfillable promises. What the public truly desires are emergency rooms that will accept heart attack patients even at 2 a.m., obstetrics departments where high-risk mothers can give birth safely, and oncology departments where cancer patients do not have to leave their region for treatment—not simply new hospitals that are large and flashy.

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