A public nursing home will be built in Seogwipo. Residents in southern Jeju will be able to access quality medical service.
Mike Balfour reports.

There are 10 nursing homes including the Jeju Medical Center on the island.

[slug] All of nursing homes are in Jeju City

The nursing homes have about 1,400 beds in total.
Seogwipo, however, doesn’t have any single bed. All of the facilities are in Jeju City.

[slug] Zero nursing home in Seogwipo City

Elderly patients in Seogwipo have to come all the way to Jeju City to get medical treatment.

[slug] Province to build nursing home in Seogwipo City

The province is building a nursing home to provide public medical service to Seogwipo residents.

The nursing home will sit on 7,400 square meters of land and have three stories above and two stories below ground.
It will have 120 beds and will cost 29 billion won.


The new facility will be located near the Seogwipo Medical Center.
The creation of the nursing home was one of the governor's election campaign pledges.
The province had sought a proper location since last year.

[slug] Site near Seogwipo Medical Center being considered

The parking lot of the Seogwipo Medical Center had been considered, but the suggestion was abandoned due to traffic issues.
The province has decided to buy two privately owned lots and a lot owned by JDC at about 9 billion won.


The province's Finance and Investment Deliberation Committee recently approved the construction on the condition that the province reassesses value of the planned site and includes the construction in the province's mid-term local financial plan.



[slug] If approved by provincial council, procedure of land purchase to begin

If the construction plan is approved by the provincial council, the land purchase process will begin next year with plans to open the nursing home in 2023.

Currently, the number of people aged 65 or older in Jeju is 93,000, which accounts for 14.3 percent of the population.

[Reporter]Mike Balfour
[Camera] Jwa Sang-eun
[CG] So Gi-hun

The addition of the planned nursing home will hopefully improve access to public medical services for Seogwipo residents.
Mike Balfour, KCTV