Nine regional national university hospitals recorded an average bed occupancy rate of 56.4% in 2025, dropping sharply from 73.6% in 2023.
The persistent decline leaves more than four out of every ten beds empty at these institutions. The data, submitted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to Democratic Party Representative Seo Mi-hwa, highlights a failure to recover patient volumes even after the standoff between the government and the medical community subsided.
Individual hospital figures show severe drops in bed utilization across provincial medical centers.
Other major regional facilities experienced similar contractions.
Surgical Volumes Remain Far Below Pre-Conflict Levels
While procedures rebounded slightly to 145,810 cases in 2025, the total remained 24.5% below 2023 levels.
Recovery continued to lag through the first half of 2026. Hospitals performed a total of 89,804 surgeries through June 2026.
Lawmakers and Medical Professionals Debate Support Measures
National university hospitals serve as critical public medical institutions responsible for severe trauma, emergency care, and essential medical services in their regions. Prolonged low occupancy rates are forcing these hospitals into emergency management strategies, threatening severe financial deterioration.
Responsibility for national university hospitals shifted from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Health and Welfare in August of this year. The Health Ministry previously announced a comprehensive development plan in June of this year to strengthen clinical, research, educational, and public policy functions at these institutions.
Representative Seo Mi-hwa emphasized that the Ministry of Health and Welfare must provide substantive support, including staffing and clinical infrastructure expansions, to ensure these institutions fulfill their public health mandates. Meanwhile, medical professionals criticized government authorities and media outlets for focusing primarily on negative descriptions of regional medical collapse without delivering practical alternatives for staffing, financing, and clinical infrastructure.
In 2023, the average bed occupancy rate across these nine regional national university hospitals stood at 73.6% before policy disputes initiated under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration disrupted operations.
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