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| National Medical Center in Seoul / Korea Times file |
By Kim Se-jeong
The Seoul Metropolitan Government is moving to relocate the National Medical Center (NMC) to make room for a new infectious disease treatment center, in an effort to cope with any new outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic here.
Mayor Park Won-soon and Welfare Minister Park Neung-hoo signed a document Wednesday vowing to cooperate in the NMC relocation project.
"I hope today's move will pave the way for the opening of the new medical center specialized in infectious diseases," Mayor Park said. "Also, I hope this will also put an end to the 17-year-long debate over the relocation of the NMC."
"I hope this move will make the NMC the main pillar of public healthcare facilities in Korea and that the new infectious disease center will enhance Korea's response to infectious diseases in the future," Minister Park said.
The NMC will move to the former site of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Far East District which is close to the current location. The 42,096 square meters of land is currently owned by the defense ministry. A city official said negotiations are currently underway about the land purchase.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19, Mayor Park argued Korea needs a new medical center specialized in infectious diseases and the NMC can be a good candidate site for it.
Park's idea is in line with his vision to create a new international organization to assist the world's cities in responding to infectious disease. He proposed his idea at the Cities Against COVID-19 Global Summit which Seoul hosted. Amid the pandemic, many cities around the world reached out to Seoul to learn from its experience.
The need for medical centers specialized in infectious diseases has been around since the MERS outbreak in 2014 but it hasn't been realized yet due to lack of resources and conflicts of interest. The government's response has been, so far, selecting existing medical institutions and offering additional support so that they can offer specialized treatment to patients.
The NMC opened in 1958 with the assistance of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Its relocation to Seocho District in southern Seoul has been pushed since 2007 but the plan went nowhere because of opposition from Seocho residents and criticism of the location's poor accessibility.
