Seo Gil-jun, president of the National Medical Center (NMC), said the institution aims to become a core hub capable of comprehensive responses across essential medical fields including infectious diseases, disasters, emergency care and trauma, leveraging its planned relocation to a new facility and the construction of a central infectious disease hospital by 2030.
At a press conference marking his first anniversary in office held at the NMC in Jung-gu, Seoul on Wednesday, Seo said, "We will faithfully fulfill our role as a public health and medical platform encompassing clinical care, policy support, and education and research, establishing ourselves as an institution trusted by the public."
The medical center was originally built at its current site in 1958 with support from Norway, Sweden and Denmark following the Korean War. The new hospital will be constructed on a nearby site currently occupied by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, comprising 776 beds in total — 526 beds for the main hospital, 150 beds for the central infectious disease hospital and 100 beds for the trauma center. This represents a 55.5% expansion from the current 499 beds.
A project budget of 1.8345 trillion won ($1.3 billion) was finalized early this year, with only groundbreaking remaining. Of the 700 billion won donated in 2021 by the bereaved family of the late Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee, 500 billion won will also be invested in the project.
Since taking office, Seo has focused on strengthening the institution's fundamentals through recruiting top medical professionals and investing in infrastructure. As a result, patient numbers and medical revenue increased approximately 30% year-on-year as of January this year. The NMC has also maintained its role as a public healthcare safety net, with vulnerable populations such as medical aid recipients accounting for roughly one-quarter of all treatments.
However, resolving the chronic shortage of essential and public healthcare personnel remains the most pressing task for the remainder of his term. "Currently, the NMC is classified as a 'miscellaneous public institution' under the Ministry of Education, bound by a fixed headcount system and total payroll cap," Seo stressed. "Lifting this classification is urgent if we are to hire at levels comparable to private hospitals and secure top medical professionals."