Seongbuk-gu Festival and 30 Annual Medical Volunteer Services
Seongbuk Seongsim Medical Center has been providing medical volunteer services for the Seongbuk Cultural Vacance since 2015. The photo shows Manager Jonghun Park and Seyun Joo from the center. Courtesy of Seongbuk-gu. Photo by Seongbuk-gu.
Seongbuk-gu, Seoul is holding the ‘Seongbuk Cultural Vacance’ until the 6th of this month. Until the 30th of last month, the event was held at Seongbuk Elementary School, and from the 2nd to the 6th of this month, large water play facilities have been set up at the Uicheon Multipurpose Plaza and the vacant lot in front of Gireum 1-dong 7 Complex to host the vacance festival.
As many people, including children on summer vacation, flock to the vacance festival, preventing safety accidents is the most important factor. The Seongbuk Cultural Vacance, now in its 8th year, attracts more than 10,000 children and parents annually. Besides the public officials preparing the event, there are people supporting the festival behind the scenes.
Seongbuk Seongsim Medical Center, located on Dongsomun-ro in Seongbuk-gu (Chief Director Choi Nak-won), has been providing medical volunteer services and ambulance support at all sites from the 1st Vacance held at Wolgok Elementary School in 2015 to this year’s events at Seongbuk Elementary School and Uicheon Multipurpose Plaza.
The Seongbuk Seongsim Medical Center supports a total of four personnel, including medical staff and ambulance drivers (two per team), working in two shifts throughout the event to operate the Seongbuk Cultural Vacance medical office. Children showing dehydration symptoms due to excessive water play, parents who have strained their backs while playing with children in wet areas, and safety personnel injured while maintaining safety on site all visit the medical office set up by the center.
Last year, the medical volunteer team saved the life of a child who was in an emergency situation due to an underlying disease at the site. Following this incident, the medical volunteer team proposed ‘guidance to raise awareness of underlying diseases and the special attention of companions’ for visitors to the Seongbuk Cultural Vacance, and Seongbuk-gu has reflected this content since this year.
Seongbuk Seongsim Medical Center is a private medical institution that has been in the same location on Dongsomun-ro since its opening in 1989, maintaining its presence for 35 years. It operates a 24/7 medical system, making it one of the hospitals that Seongbuk residents think of first in emergencies.
In addition to the Seongbuk Cultural Vacance, the center also provides medical volunteer services at representative Seongbuk-gu festivals such as the ‘World Food Festival Nurimasil.’ This amounts to about 30 times a year on average. Park Jong-hoon, the center’s deputy director, said, “We let the public health center focus on places that require more important and rapid responses, while our center’s medical volunteer team supports festival sites. Thanks to the residents of Seongbuk-gu, the medical center has been able to grow, so we will continue volunteer activities as a form of service and talent donation.”
Lee Seung-ro, Mayor of Seongbuk-gu, said, “I want to express my special gratitude to Seongbuk Seongsim Medical Center, which provides ambulances and medical personnel at all Cultural Vacance sites.”
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
