Four out of 10 patients at Seoul hospitals are from other regions: data

Over 40 percent of patients who were treated at Seoul-based hospitals last year were visitors from other regions, data showed Sunday -- another indication that the country's medical staff and infrastructure are concentrated in the greater Seoul area.

A total of 15.03 million people received medical care at hospitals in Seoul in 2023, 6.23 million of whom (41.5 percent) were residents of other regions, according to data from the National Health Insurance Service. The percentage of hospital patients from other regions is higher in Seoul than any other city or province in South Korea.

This is thought to be related to the fact that Seoul is home to many major medical facilities in the country. Despite the nation's capital accounting for just 18.2 percent of the country's population, 28.1 percent of doctors and 23.1 percent of nurses in the country were working in Seoul as of December 2024, according to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service.

South Korea designates "tertiary hospitals" in accordance with Article 3-4 of the Medical Service Act, and 14 of 47 such hospitals (29.8 percent) are also in Seoul. Tertiary hospitals refer to medical institutions with specialized departments and staff with training programs and capacity to provide specialized care for serious illnesses.

The greater Seoul region, comprising Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, is by far the most populous region in the country and has more social infrastructure than any other region. As such, 50.7 percent of the medical students who graduated from other regions got a job in the greater Seoul area in 2023, according to Ministry of Education data revealed last week.

In particular, the medical school of Hallym University, located in Gangwon Province, saw 90.5 percent of its graduates in 2023 getting a job in the capital region.