Seo Gil-jun, president of the National Medical Center (NMC), said the institution aims to become a core hub capable of comprehensive response in essential medical fields including infectious diseases, disasters, emergency care and trauma, with the planned relocation to a new facility and the construction of a central infectious disease hospital by 2030.
At a press conference marking the first anniversary of his inauguration 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, and establish ourselves as an institution trusted by the public."
The medical center was established at its current site in 1958 with support from Norway, Sweden and Denmark following the Korean War. The new hospital complex will be built on a nearby former U.S. Army Corps of Engineers site, comprising the main hospital (526 beds), a central infectious disease hospital (150 beds) and a trauma center (100 beds), totaling 776 beds. This represents a 55.5% expansion from the current 499 beds.
A project budget of 1.8345 trillion won ($1.3 billion) was finalized earlier this year, with only groundbreaking remaining. Of the 700 billion won donated in 2021 by the bereaved family of the late Lee Kun-hee, former chairman of Samsung Electronics, 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 groups such as medical aid patients 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. "The NMC is currently classified as a 'miscellaneous public institution' under the Ministry of Education, bound by fixed staffing caps and total personnel cost limits," Seo said. "Removing this designation is urgent if we are to expand hiring to private hospital levels and secure top medical professionals."