On the 20th, when the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee audit of institutions under the Ministry of Health and Welfare was held, the ruling party focused on questions about government-led policies such as strengthening local, essential, and public medical care, while the opposition party raised issues such as medical support projects for North Korea and the merger of institutions under the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The ruling party again argued that expansion of national and local finances was inevitable in order to expand local, essential, and public medical care.
Rep. Lee In-young of the Democratic Party of Korea said, "The proportion of public healthcare in our country is far below the OECD average. There are 4 medical centers that do not pay wages, and 48.5% of the total are local medical centers that have more than 40% of medical devices that exceed their useful life." He added, "Unless a strategy is established to cover the deficit of local medical centers with national or regional finances at a certain level, there appears to be no room for improvement in management difficulties."
Rep. Lee Su-jin pointed out, “There are hospitals where financial and manpower difficulties cannot be resolved because local governments, which have primary responsibility for operating local medical centers, are not fulfilling their responsibilities.”
“In particular, the Seoul Medical Center is an institution funded by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, but it is the only one among the Seoul Metropolitan Government-funded institutions that does not receive a single penny of the contribution,” he said, adding, “Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s behavior led to unfair measures of overtime work in the hospital, and led to excessive work and a harsh organizational culture, which became the structural cause of the burnout.”
Rep. Jeon Jin-sook also emphasized, “We established a five-year plan to expand public healthcare, but the actual financial investment remains at the level of two-thirds of the plan,” and added, “Because the financial investment is not in place, results cannot be achieved properly.”
The opposition party raised the alarm on this day by mentioning the medical support project to North Korea by the Korea Foundation for International Healthcare, an organization subject to National Assembly inspection, and the decision to merge and abolish institutions under the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Rep. Jo Bae-sook of the People Power Party mentioned the project to support medical equipment at the Kangdong County Hospital in Pyongyang and asked, “If you look at the history of medical support projects for North Korea over the past 10 years, there are many cases in which the project costs were not implemented at all.” She asked, “In a situation where North Korea does not acknowledge that it has laid landmines and is broadcasting to South Korea as a red flag, should we view medical support as meeting the public’s expectations?”
According to Rep. Cho, of the 7.255 billion won budget allocated to the inter-Korean health and medical cooperation project over the past 10 years, the actual amount spent was only 1.6383 billion won (22.6%).
People Power Party lawmaker Kim Ki-woong said regarding the health and medical white paper produced by the Korea Foundation for International Healthcare at Seoul National University's Center for Unification Medicine, "The data provided by the Ministry of Unification in 2020 was copied and pasted exactly, even down to the typos," and "The lead researcher doing the service is President Lee Jae-myung's personal doctor. He conducted a falsified study and took close to 100 million won."
Representative Baek Jong-heon, a member of the opposition party, criticized the merger of the Korea Organ Donation Agency, the Korea Public Tissue Bank, and the National Bioethics Policy Institute, saying, "They are related, but they each do different things. In fact, only a few director and executive positions have been reduced, so can it be called a 'public institution diet'?"
Meanwhile, the ruling and opposition party welfare committee members held a moment of silence in remembrance of the late Fire Commissioner Kim Jin-seok, who died in a factory fire in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, prior to the start of the National Assembly audit.
Welfare committee members from the People Power Party held a press conference during the National Assembly inspection and urged Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok to apologize and explain the controversy over parking in a parking lot exclusively for emergency patients.
In addition, in relation to the police's search and seizure of the pediatric emergency room, he demanded, "The government must present guidelines for emergency room investigation and search and seizure within the government audit period," while also urging the Ministry of Health and Welfare to "examine the standards for emergency helicopter transportation and power sources" regarding the controversy over preferential transportation by fire helicopter during the attack on President Lee.
