National Assembly member Lee Dal-hee. [Provided by Lee Dal-hee's office]
National Assembly member Lee Dal-hee. [Provided by Lee Dal-hee's office]

National Assembly member Lee Dal-hee (People Power Party, proportional representation), a member of the Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee, attended a forum Friday at the main building of Kyungpook National University to review progress on establishing a national medical school and discuss the path forward.

About 10 people attended the forum, including Lee, Health and Welfare Committee Chairman Lee Man-hee, Kim Min-seok, North Gyeongsang Province's policy director, Kim Ho-seop, the province's welfare and health bureau chief, Andong Mayor Kwon Gi-chang, and Lee Hyeok-jae, vice president of Kyungpook National University.

North Gyeongsang Province is pushing to build a national medical school with 100 enrollment slots and an affiliated hospital with 500 beds on the provincial government's new town site in Andong and Yecheon.

The total project cost is 489.5 billion won ($346 million) in national funding — 160.3 billion won for the medical school and 329.2 billion won for the affiliated hospital. The plan calls for a "regional settlement" model under which all admitted students would be drawn from local talent and required to serve in the region for 10 years, with a target opening date of 2030.

North Gyeongsang Province has long been cited as having some of the worst healthcare conditions in the country. The province has 1.44 doctors per 1,000 residents, placing it near the bottom nationally, and 15 of its cities and counties have been designated as population-decline areas.

The province has no tertiary general hospital of its own, and the rate at which patients are transferred to the greater Seoul area is 15 times the national average. Chilgok Kyungpook National University Hospital, the designated regional medical center, has also drawn criticism for its limited reach in the northern part of the province due to the physical distance involved.

The province's capacity to train medical professionals is equally thin. The only medical school quota within North Gyeongsang Province stands at 49 seats at Dongguk University, and just 3.1 percent of graduates remain in the region — a rate widely seen as insufficient to meaningfully support local healthcare.

"The reality is that 15 of North Gyeongsang Province's cities and counties have been designated as population-decline areas, and when people actually fall ill, there are not enough hospitals to provide timely treatment," Lee said. "Establishing a national medical school in North Gyeongsang Province is not simply a matter of attracting one university — it is an essential task on which the region's survival depends."

Lee added that as a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee, she would do everything in her power to ensure the project comes to fruition and becomes a turning point in closing the regional healthcare gap.


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