Onyang Boram Nursing Hospital Remodeling, Opening Next Year
Emergency Medical Care, Outpatient Specialization, Health Checkup Center, and More
[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Dongguk Lee] Ulju-gun, Ulsan City, has finalized the scale and implementation method of the ‘Ulju-gun Municipal Hospital’ and will begin full-scale establishment aiming for opening in the second half of next year.
On the 1st, Ulju-gun Governor Soon-geol Lee held a press conference at the Ulju-gun Press Center and announced the plan to establish the municipal hospital, stating, “We will create a medical center that cares for all generations from birth to old age.”
Lee Soon-geol, Ulju County Governor, explaining the plan for the construction of Ulju County Hospital.
The Ulju-gun Municipal Hospital, the first public hospital in Ulju-gun, will be established with the vision of ‘Building a Happy Ulju Smart Medical System that permeates my life.’
To ensure stability and efficiency in hospital operations, it will be established with a scale of 40 to 80 beds, and its core functions will include emergency room operation, 4 to 6 specialized outpatient clinics, and operation of a health screening center.
In addition to public hospital functions, it will provide comprehensive health services for the elderly population responding to the super-aged society and smart health management medical services utilizing digital technology.
Future operational plans will be established through expert advisory committees, and specialized functions and revenue-generating functions such as public postpartum care centers, nursing homes, dialysis rooms, smart healthcare centers, and funeral halls will also be introduced.
The establishment method will involve remodeling the existing Onyang Boram Nursing Hospital and is scheduled to open in the second half of next year.
Previously, the county reviewed a total of seven candidate sites with the Ulsan Research Institute, considering two options: new hospital construction and utilization of existing hospital buildings. As a result, Boram Nursing Hospital was analyzed as the best in terms of cost, time, expansion potential, and utilization efficiency.
The total project cost is about 25 billion KRW, which reduces costs nearly threefold compared to the average new hospital construction cost of 70 billion KRW, and it is exempt from the government feasibility study required for new projects over 50 billion KRW.
Also, purchasing the existing building (3 years) reduces the opening time to less than half compared to new hospital construction (7 years), thus expected to resolve the regional medical gap most quickly.
Ulju-gun plans to open the hospital as quickly as possible first, and then expand to a scale of more than 100 beds once operations stabilize, considering patient demand and medical staff supply.
The hospital operation method will promote entrusted operation by a general hospital to ensure smooth medical staff recruitment and operational expertise. Insufficient personnel and infrastructure will be supplemented by linking resources from the entrusted hospital, and a thorough transfer cooperation system for secondary care and severe patients will be established.
From this month until June, Ulju-gun will establish detailed operational plans regarding the exact number of beds, medical departments, operating personnel, specialized functions, and smart hospital system introduction together with professional institutions, and will form an expert advisory committee to finalize the plan.
Governor Lee said, “Starting with the establishment of the Ulju-gun Municipal Hospital, the southern region of Ulju will transform from a medically vulnerable area into a safe zone for health, medical, and health services,” adding, “We will continue to cooperate with local political circles with one heart to ensure the smooth establishment of the municipal hospital.”
The southern region of Ulju-gun has consistently raised the need for public medical infrastructure due to the absence of general hospitals operating emergency rooms or medical institutions above hospital level.
The number of emergency patients transferred to other local governments has increased annually from 2,899 in 2019 to 3,699 last year.
To solve this problem, Governor Soon-geol Lee approved the plan to form a task force for the establishment of the municipal hospital as his first official act on the day of his inauguration, and over the past six months, he has taken steps toward establishing the municipal hospital through research projects, expert advisory meetings, resident briefings, and visits to public hospitals nationwide.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
