Lawmaker blasted for allegedly asking hospital for favors

Rep. Ihn Yohan of the ruling People Power Party speaks during a meeting of the party’s health care reform committee on June 17. (Im Se-jun/The Korea Herald)

A lawmaker with the ruling People Power Party came under fire Thursday for suspicions he solicited favors from a hospital amid disruptions in health care services nationwide.

At the plenary meeting of the National Assembly, Rep. Yohan Ihn was photographed by a press camera texting “thanks” on his cellphone to an unidentified recipient who appeared to be telling him about a patient that he knows.

In the messages, as captured in the photograph, the person on the other side of the conversation with Ihn says: “The requested patient is in operation now. If there had been any delays, things could have gotten very bad.”

Soon after the photographs surfaced, the rival Democratic Party of Korea accused the ruling party lawmaker of asking someone at the hospital for services on behalf of the patient.

While Ihn said the texts were only meant as a well-wishing gesture, Democratic Party Rep. Noh Jong-myun told reporters Thursday that the ruling party lawmaker’s explanation “doesn’t add up.”

He said that Ihn’s texts “showed people with connections can still get care at hospitals as emergency rooms and other essential health services were shutting down after months of doctors’ strife with the government.”

“President Yoon Suk Yeol lied when he said health services are running smoothly. His Health Ministry has denied there is a crisis at hospitals despite people dying after being refused service,” he said. “The ruling party hasn’t done anything to keep the government in check.”

Ending the monthslong health care strike was one of the top items on the agenda at the meeting of People Power Party and Democratic Party leaders Sunday, after a series of hospitals across the nation closed down emergency care services over the past month.

Ihn, who was a director of the International Health Care Center at Severance Hospital in Seoul before he became a lawmaker, is the head of the ruling party’s health care reform committee.