President Lee Jae Myung [Yonhap]
President Lee Jae Myung [Yonhap]

President Lee Jae Myung will chair a forum on regional, essential and public healthcare at Cheong Wa Dae on Wednesday afternoon, the presidential office said.

Held under the slogan "Universal healthcare — quality treatment no matter where you live," the event was organized to discuss ways to overhaul regional, essential and public medical services alongside frontline healthcare workers, patient and civic groups, and experts. It comes as calls have grown to reform healthcare in the regions to drive locally led growth and balanced national development.

The forum will focus in particular on finding solutions to disparities in healthcare access between regions — including patients who die after missing the critical treatment window despite their conditions being treatable, and "medical refugees" forced to travel to other areas to receive care.

About 100 people from the private sector, government and local authorities will attend. Private-sector participants will include frontline workers — doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists and emergency medical technicians — from the fields of regional medicine (rural areas and medically underserved communities), essential medicine (emergency, obstetric and pediatric care) and public medicine (national university hospitals, regional medical centers and public health centers), as well as representatives from patient, consumer and labor organizations and relevant experts.

Specialists in AI will also attend to present strategies for advancing regional, essential and public healthcare through emerging AI technologies. From the government, attending ministers will include Bae Gyeong-hun, deputy prime minister for science and technology and minister of science and ICT; Jeong Eun-gyeong, minister of health and welfare; and Park Hong-keun, minister of planning and budget. Local government representatives will include Min Hyeong-bae, mayor of the South Jeolla Province-Gwangju integrated special city; Jeon Jae-soo, mayor of Busan; and Kim Sang-uk, mayor of Ulsan. From Cheong Wa Dae, Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik, Policy Director Kim Yong-beom, Fiscal Planning Adviser Ryu Deok-hyeon and Senior Secretary for Social Affairs Kim Gyeong-ja will also be present.

The event will open with a national ceremony and remarks by President Lee, followed by presentations from relevant ministries and experts. The minister of health and welfare will present a plan to strengthen regional, essential and public healthcare, after which Seo Jun-beom, head of the AI Basic Healthcare Subgroup under the National AI Strategy Committee, will present an AI basic healthcare strategy. An open discussion will follow, during which participants will offer recommendations on the government's proposals, share the concerns of frontline workers and patients, and discuss ways to achieve a full transformation of regional, essential and public healthcare.


sang@heraldcorp.com