"Special Order. Secure a Medical School in Changwon Special City Without Fail"

Changwon Special City, Launch of Pan-Citizen Promotion Committee and Rally

Over 1,000 Citizens and Social Organizations Attend to Pledge Commitment

On the 13th, the "Changwon Medical School Attraction Pan-Citizen Promotion Committee" inauguration ceremony and rally were held with the attendance of about 1,000 people, including local members of the National Assembly, provincial and city council members, representatives from the economic, medical, and educational sectors, as well as civic and social organizations, to actively promote the establishment of a medical school in Changwon Special City.

Currently, the atmosphere in the region is heated, with the Gyeongnam Provincial Assembly and Changwon City Council adopting proposals to the government.

The event was organized to build consensus and gather aspirations within the Changwon community for attracting a medical school. The committee appointed 180 members representing various sectors of society, with Hong Nampyo, Mayor of Changwon Special City, Kim Igeun, Chairperson of the City Council, and Gu Jacheon, Chairman of the Changwon Chamber of Commerce and Industry, serving as co-chairpersons.

The Launch Ceremony and Rally of the Citizens' Committee for the Attraction of Changwon Medical School were held in Changwon Special City, Gyeongnam.

The attendees stated, "Changwon City is currently the only metropolitan city with a population of over one million that does not have a medical school, and it also lacks a pharmacy school, dental school, Korean medicine school, and law school," adding, "This has been a 30-year-long aspiration of the citizens since 1992, and we will do our utmost to realize the establishment of Changwon Medical School, which is a wish that must be fulfilled."

In particular, they resolved to ▲ urge the government to immediately promote the establishment of a medical school in Changwon Special City to protect the basic right to health of the people ▲ present a vision to resolve the deepening medical gap between the metropolitan area and regional areas and to achieve balanced development ▲ realize the dreams and hopes of 1.04 million Changwon Special City citizens by preventing the outflow of local talent and securing excellent young talents ▲ lay the foundation for the next 50 years of future economy by maximizing the medical and bio-industrial development in Changwon ▲ and promptly implement the Yoon Seok-yeol administration’s pledges based on the manifesto spirit.

Following the signing of the government proposal letter by the co-chairpersons, the attendees participated in a ceremony of flying paper airplanes of hope to pray for the successful attraction of the medical school.

Even before the main event, the "One Million Citizens, One Million Signatures Campaign" officially began. The signature campaign is being led by the promotion committee from this day forward, and the collected signatures will later be submitted to the government along with a petition. Additionally, the pan-citizen promotion committee plans to continue campaigns for the establishment of the medical school, press conferences, and events to pray for its attraction.

Currently, the medical indicators of Changwon City and Gyeongnam Province rank among the lowest nationwide. While the national average of medical school quotas per 100,000 people is 5.9, Gyeongnam’s figure is 2.3, and the number of emergency medicine specialists is 2.1, about half of the national average of 4.5. Consequently, 14 out of 18 regions in Gyeongnam are classified as medically vulnerable emergency care areas.

Moreover, Gyeongnam’s unmet medical needs rate (the percentage of people who wanted to visit a hospital or clinic in the past year but could not) was 8.4% in 2020 (ranked 1st nationwide) and 7.2% in 2021 (ranked 2nd nationwide), the highest in the country. The number of doctors per 1,000 medical institution workers in Gyeongnam is 2.5, which is below the national average of 3.1.

Mayor Hong said, "Due to the shortage of medical personnel and infrastructure, 200,000 patients leave Gyeongnam annually to seek medical treatment in the metropolitan area. The only solution to this problem is the establishment of Changwon Medical School," adding, "The Changwon community will unite to demonstrate why it must be Changwon and why it can only be Changwon, and we will surely fulfill this 30-year-old aspiration."

Meanwhile, efforts to attract a medical school to Changwon began in 1992, and in 1996 and 1997, signature campaigns were conducted to establish an industrial medical school, with about 118,000 people, approximately 30% of Changwon’s population at the time, participating.

However, although the Ministry of Health and Welfare designated the approval for new medical schools in 1996, including the eastern Gyeongnam region as a medically underserved area, the following year the Ministry of Education significantly strengthened the establishment requirements by prioritizing medical schools only to universities with more than 500 hospital beds, which dashed the hopes of attracting a medical school to Changwon.