"Please expand it. When a child gets sick on weekends or at night, it's so difficult. Last time, I traveled to Yeosu with my child and spent 30 minutes searching for a pharmacy."
"I really think expanding the list of safe OTC drug items is necessary. On national holidays and public holidays, it's really hard to buy medicine. It should be implemented as soon as possible for the people."
"Pharmacies close too early. It's so hard to find a pharmacy open on weekends. I wish convenience stores would sell the medicines we really need."
"OTC drugs, as the name suggests, need to be available for immediate purchase nearby when there's an emergency, so 24-hour convenience stores seem most effective."
"When I suddenly get sick at night or on weekends and need medicine, it's sometimes difficult to find an open pharmacy. Please allow emergency medicines to be bought at nearby convenience stores."
These statements are part of public opinions gathered through an online petition in which consumers participated in support of expanding the list of safe OTC drug items.
In the middle of the night, there are times when a sleeping child's forehead burns hot. The numbers on the thermometer keep climbing, but it is already past midnight and the neighborhood pharmacy has closed. Any parent will have experienced this helpless moment at least once. No parent living in Korea can fail to relate to how great a comfort a small medicine shelf at a convenience store, lit 24 hours, can be.
We have been able to purchase medicines at convenience stores since 2012, when the system allowing the sale of safe OTC medicines outside pharmacies took effect. It is a system designed so that the public can obtain a minimum range of medicines such as fever and pain relievers, cold medicines, digestive aids, and pain-relief patches even during late nights or public holidays when pharmacies are closed.
The problem is that, although the current Pharmaceutical Affairs Act provides for designating up to 20 items of convenience store OTC drugs, there has not been a single proper adjustment or review of the items since the system was introduced. Moreover, four years ago, some Tylenol items, the products the public seeks most frequently, were discontinued from domestic production, so the convenience store OTC drugs we can currently buy number only about 11. As a result, a situation continues in which medicines the public needs still cannot be purchased at convenience stores.
Over the past 14 years, the form of OTC drugs that people seek in their daily lives has also changed greatly. With cold medicines alone, the methods of taking them have diversified, including squeeze-pack formulations and water-soluble formulations, and customized products for specific symptoms are expanding. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for self-monitoring and managing minor symptoms at home has also risen further.
The social environment has changed as well. As single-person households and the elderly population increase, and as night and shift work become commonplace, access to medicines during late-night and holiday hours is no longer a secondary issue but a task directly tied to people's lives. Yet even though the public's environment for using medicines has changed in this way, the safe OTC drug system, which is most closely connected to people's lives, has effectively remained stagnant for 14 years.
Amid this, the Ministry of Health and Welfare's announcement on the 11th that it would expand convenience store safe OTC medicine items up to the legal ceiling of 20 as a key task for the second half of the year is very welcome news. As someone who has long contemplated consumer rights and the issue of medical access in daily life, I sincerely extend my welcome. Belated though it is, it will surely be a meaningful start. But even at this moment when the ministry has finally taken a step toward improving the issue of medicine access directly tied to people's livelihoods, concerns remain.
This is because there is still no concrete plan for when, and with what members, the item committee that has been delayed for 14 years will convene, and even if the committee convenes, it is impossible to predict whether the items the public truly wants will be properly added. During 2017 and 2018, the committee convened as many as eight times, but did it not arrive at today without reaching any conclusion at all, having yielded to fierce opposition from pharmacists? Now, the key is the ministry's determination.
The Safe OTC Drug Citizens Network, to which I belong, was launched in 2023 with eight civic groups coming together to drive improvements in the items and framework of this system. As a result of conducting two public awareness surveys, in 2023 and 2025, after its launch, the public's desired plan for improving the items was simple: replacing out-of-stock fever and pain relievers, additionally designating children's dedicated medicines and symptom-specific customized medicines (cold medicines, pain relievers), and additionally designating disinfectants, antidiarrheals, and antacids, which have steadily been on the table for discussion.
The reason for revisiting this data is that, now that the government has made the expansion of convenience store OTC drugs official, the newly formed item committee must properly listen to the voices of the public, who are the actual users. The opinions of experts, including pharmacist groups, must of course be respected and are also necessary, but we must not forget that the final users of this system are the people who suffer inconvenience from a child's fever late at night or sudden abdominal pain on a public holiday. Therefore, I hope that the field experience of consumer groups, which have steadily represented the voices of the public to improve this system, will not be excluded from the discussions.
The public has already watched, over many years, the debate over expanding convenience store OTC drug items that has made no progress. What is needed now is change that people can feel in their daily lives. I hope that the ministry's plan to expand the items will not stop at a sentence in an announcement, and that the public can experience the benefits of the system more safely and more conveniently.
She is...
She earned a Ph.D. in home economics with a major in consumer economics at Chung-Ang University.
She currently serves as President of the Consumer Public Interest Network, leading research and studies, policy proposals, education, and campaign activities to enhance consumer rights and create a fair market environment. As a member of the Consumer Policy Committee under the Office for Government Policy Coordination, she promotes consumer-centered system improvements and damage-prevention activities in cooperation with the government, the National Assembly, related agencies, and civil society.
Previously, she served as President of the Korea National Council of Consumer Organizations and as a member of the Regulatory Reform Committee under the President.
