'Lee government’s health policy lacks focus on patients, present challenges'

Experts at a forum criticized the Lee Jae-myung administration for emphasizing the expansion of regional and public healthcare without presenting concrete implementation plans.

They added that discussions on related measures—such as establishing new public and regional medical schools and introducing a regional doctor system—remain fragmented.

“Since the new government took office, it has repeatedly talked about strengthening public healthcare, but I question how much substantive effort is actually being made,” said Kim Seong-ju, president of the Korea Severe Disease Association, during a media event titled Improvement Measures for the Physician Training System to Protect Patients and Public Health held at the Korea YWCA in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday.

Kim said patients have grown weary after enduring a year and a half of the government–doctor conflict, but nothing has changed. “In fact, conditions have only worsened. While it is said regional healthcare must be revitalized, even if patients want to go to regional hospitals, the return rate of resident doctors to essential medical departments in those hospitals is only around 10 percent,” he noted.

He continued, “It's time to look closely at what situations patients are facing and what kind of treatment they are actually receiving. Without this, the improvement measures proposed by the medical community and the government are nothing but empty words. While we talk about patient-centered care, currently, no discussion is truly centered on the patient.”

Kim also warned that pushing for new medical schools without addressing immediate healthcare gaps amounts to populism.

The medical community stressed that what is needed is a regional healthcare policy that gradually solves current problems, not a system of regional doctors or public medical schools that may only have an effect a decade from now. Critics argued it is time to improve the working conditions of medical professionals already serving in provincial areas.

“We need systems that provide incentives or consolidate scattered medical personnel to immediately address the current regional healthcare gaps,” said Professor Ha Eun-jin of the Department of Neurosurgery at Seoul National University Hospital. “Right now, regional medical workers are exhausted from working alone in clinics 24/7 without holidays, and many are opting to leave their hospitals.”

Rather than assigning one or two professionals to each hospital, Ha said Korea should adopt a model where multiple medical professionals work at a single institution, tailored to local disease burdens or regional characteristics. “Private-sector leadership has its limits. Investing public funds to secure economies of scale and ensure a stable workforce will improve working conditions and create a virtuous cycle,” he added.

Such a cycle would, in turn, improve education and training environments, fostering an ecosystem that cultivates doctors within the region. Concentrating dispersed professionals in one place not only strengthens clinical care but also creates time for educational investment, reducing instances where residents are treated as disposable labor.

“Of course, establishing a system that cultivates doctors with an understanding and affection for their communities—through admissions reform and other improvements—would also benefit regional healthcare. The current situation, where doctors are concentrated in areas like Seoul's Gangnam district and among the economic elite, is not desirable for patients either,” Ha said.

He concluded, “However, we must first seek efficient solutions to address existing healthcare gaps and then attempt to draw a broader long-term vision. Without such efforts, merely proposing to establish new public or regional medical schools and introduce a regional doctor system is nothing more than making meaningless statements for electoral purposes.”