'Korea needs major surgery'

/ Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

By Jung Min-ho, Kim Eil-chul

What motivated Chung Ui-hwa to become a doctor was also what brought him into politics.

After working as a neurosurgeon for 18 years, during which he performed about 5,000 surgical procedures, he realized that he would be able to save and improve more lives as a politician. Chung stepped into politics in 1996.

Nearly two decades have since passed, and now, many believe the time has already come to start writing an obituary for Chung’s political career. He has served five consecutive terms as a lawmaker in Busan before becoming the speaker of the National Assembly in May 2014.

However, during a recent interview with The Korea Times, the 66-year-old hinted that he might run for the nation’s top post after leaving his current post next year, when election fever starts ahead of the presidential election in 2017.

“I came into politics to fix the brain of the country,” Chung said at his office in Seoul. “It gets me thinking, ‘Am I capable of doing the job?’”

Yet he avoided giving a direct answer to whether he will run for presidency. Instead, Chung, a Christian who was baptized at a church in Jeonju in 1974, said “the higher power” will guide him to wherever he needs to be as it always has.

“Becoming a president is not my life’s goal. It could be someone other than me,” he said. “My goal is just to contribute toward the unification of South and North Koreas and to making our nation better … I understand that the position of the president requires tremendous responsibility and is extremely difficult.”

National Assembly Speaker Chung Ui-hwa, left, worked as chief director of Bong Seng Memorial Hospital in Busan for more than 20 years until he entered politics in 1996./ Courtesy of the National Assembly Secretariat

Chung said the country today “is heading toward a major crisis.” The leadership, in his view, is the main cause of the problem.

“Whenever a new problem emerges, what usually ends up happening is that people cover it up rather than solve it through dialogue and negotiations because they know that the process of solving it causes more conflict,” he said. “Someone needs to take the role (of a moderator).”

Chung worked as a chief director of Bong Seng Memorial Hospital in Busan for more than 20 years until he was elected as a lawmaker.

Judging from his resume, many may wonder where his political ambitions came from in the first place.

Chung didn’t enter into politics to represent the interest only of his constituents or workers in healthcare industry; even as a novice politician, his vision was much bigger.

“I realized that hundreds of thousands of people could suffer as a result of a bad decision in politics. So I thought about which profession ― a doctor or a politician ― would be more effective to accomplish my goal of saving and improving more lives,” he said.

Conglomerates ‘destroy the ecology of the medical industry’

Chung has long been opposed to anything that encourages the commercialization of medical services, and he thinks conglomerates, which build and run hospitals such as that of Samsung, are causing the public to worry.

“They are destroying the ecology of medical industry,” he said. “Allowing them to build and run hospitals is like tossing bullfrogs into a pond where small green frogs live.”

His point is that, as the conglomerates’ influence in medical industry expands, the financial gap among hospitals will widen. Eventually, smaller hospitals will bankrupt, leaving patients with no choice other than expensive hospitals.

“Few people know how harmful conglomerate-run hospitals could become,” he said.

As a young doctor, he learned that hospitals should never prioritize making money and this remains the management philosophy of Bong Seng Memorial Hospital.

Before entering politics, he formed a special committee to call on the government to ban major firms from operating a “hospital business.”

“Big firms can build clinical research centers and make donations to the hospitals with the right visions, if they want to contribute to the development of the nation’s medical system,” he said.

“Given the current situation, where many small hospitals run on loans and compete with the hospitals with lots of resources, who would be allowed to have a vision?”

It is not easy to deny the need for advancing and internationalizing the medical industry, but public health is one of the areas that cannot be sacrificed for economic growth, he noted.

Over the past few years, the government has focused on promoting Korea’s quality medical services to the world. The Ministry of Health and Welfare said last month it aims to attract 300,000 medical tourists this year and 1 million by 2020.

Promoting medical tourism is important, but, Chung said it is more important for the government to invest more resources in improving the overall quality of the nation’s medical services for everyone.

“The current approach for medical tourism is largely about promoting high-class hospitals. But I’m paying more attention to whether the average standard of hospitals are improving and whether the average Koreans benefit from the improvement,” he said.

30 hospitals for North Korea

After finishing his term as the speaker of the Assembly in May, Chung plans to build 30 hospitals in 30 cities in North Korea, including Pyongyang and Uiju.

Through this “3030 project,” he aims to build 30 hospitals in 30 cities in North Korea, where few people have access to necessary medical services.

Chung said Albert Schweitzer, a German doctor who is best known for his humanitarian work as a medical missionary, is one of his inspirations and, if the situation allows him, he wants to carry on Schweitzer’s legacy in two cities that are close to his heart ― Pyongyang, his father-in-law’s hometown and Uiju, his mother-in-law’s hometown, he noted. Both of his in-laws have passed.

Throughout his political career, Chung has been working to improve the relations between the South and North Koreas.

In 2006, he established the Foundation of Inter-Korea Medical Cooperation to boost non-governmental exchanges between the two sides. So far, he said, medicines and medical devices worth 8 billion won ($7 million) have been sent to North Korea through the foundation.