Korea’s 2024 health budget increased by 12.2% for regional essential care

The Ministry of Health and Welfare has finalized its budget for the 2024 fiscal year.

It expanded budgets to establish a regionally integrated essential health care system and ensure global competitiveness in the biomedical and digital health sectors.

The ministry said its fiscal 2024 budget won approval at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Total spending amounted to 122.45 trillion won ($92.58 billion), up 12.2 percent from 109.183 trillion won this year.

This is more than four times higher than the 2.8% increase in total public spending, reflecting the government’s intention to minimize the increase in total spending to ensure financial stability, while at the same time carrying out courageous investments in areas to which the country must give priority, such as support for the economy. socially vulnerable class and investments in the future, it says.

The ministry’s budget for next year has been formed with a focus on four key areas: strengthening the well-being of the most vulnerable, overcoming the declining birth rate, establishing a regionally integrated essential medical care system, and ensuring global competitiveness in the sectors of biological and digital health.

In the health and medical sector, it will carry out a pilot project to reorganize the emergency medical supply system in six regions so that all emergency patients can quickly receive final care in the event area, and a project to review the emergency medical system such as an on-call system that rotates for each disease among hospitals in the region so that surgeries and procedures can be performed at any time.

It will also set up regional emergency medical rooms in four regions for emergency patient transport, expand staff numbers at the central emergency medical center by six, and introduce another dedicated ambulance and medical helicopter for emergency patient transport. serious emergency.

Specifically, it increased the budget of the Emergency Medical Development and Support Program by 24 billion won, from 30.6 billion won this year to 54.6 billion won in 2024. of 6.2 billion won the pilot project aimed at reorganizing the emergency medical supply system and invested 5.1 billion won to establish a rotating on-call service for each major health emergency.

The ministry expanded the budget to support the emergency medical transportation system by 17 billion won, from 24 billion won to 25.7 billion won.

Increased the budget to support the operation of major emergency medical centers by 12.7 billion won, from 10.9 billion won to 23.6 billion won, and allocated a new budget of 10 billion won to manage large area medical emergency rooms.

Another primary policy has been the creation of a pediatric medical system that reassures children and parents.

First, the ministry will set up five 24-hour pediatric consultation centers to address blind spots in pediatric care, where parents can call at any time when their children are sick. Also, to support the operation of Moonlight Children’s Hospitals, 200 million won (US$151,200) will be donated each to 45 of these hospitals and will increase the number of pediatric emergency medical centers from 10 to 12.

To expand the infrastructure for treating critical pediatric patients, it will expand the number of public specialty treatment centers from 12 to 14, and develop five regional pediatric cancer primary hospitals for the treatment and recovery of pediatric cancer patients.

In particular, the government will provide a new training allowance of 1 million won per month for pediatricians and full-time doctors to promote pediatric medical personnel.

In detail, the Ministry has allocated 4.6 billion won for the pilot project of pediatric consultation centers and significantly expanded the budget for night and holiday care centers for pediatric patients from 200 million won this year to 4, 7 billion won in 2024.

The budget to support the operation of the specialized pediatric emergency medical system will increase from 5.2 billion won to 7.8 billion won. The budget for public centers specializing in the treatment of children will increase from 1 billion won to 6.1 billion won.

In addition, it has just formed a budget of 6.4 billion won for setting up a pediatric and adolescent cancer treatment system and 4.4 billion won to support training allowances for junior and full-time doctors.

It also included a budget for a paradigm shift in mental health focused on prevention. As a result, a budget of 53.9 billion won has been set aside for the National Mental Health Investment Project to ensure that all citizens can receive psychological counseling services when needed.

To expand mental health infrastructure, ministry expanded crisis intervention team in mental health care centers from 204 to 306 to respond to mental emergency patients at risk of self-harm and increased related budget from 75.2 billion won to 79.1 billion won.

The number of regional mental health emergency medical centers capable of responding to emergencies will also increase from 10 to 12, accompanied by a budget increase from 2.6 billion won to 3.6 billion won.

To support the economic burden of pregnancy and childbirth, it increased the budget for maternal and child health programs by 11 billion won, from 13.4 billion won to 24.4 billion won. This includes 6.3 billion won for mandatory fertility screenings and new support for assisted reproductive technologies that use frozen eggs for infertile women.

It will also implement policies to ensure the global competitiveness of bio- and digital healthcare. However, the budget to support the pharmaceutical industry was cut by 8.7 billion won, from 44.6 billion won to 35.9 billion won.

Conversely, the budget to enhance the competitiveness of the vaccine raw materials market increased by 5 billion won, from 7.9 billion won to 12.9 billion won. The budget for bio- and digital health R&D to secure future growth engines increased by 83.4 billion won, from 696.7 billion won to 780.1 billion won.

In addition, large-scale R&D budgets will receive new investments, including 49.5 billion won for Korea’s “ARPA-H” to solve national health challenges and 60.4 billion won for “Project Boston -Korea” for the Global Joint Research.

The 2024 budget, drawn up under difficult financial conditions, reflects the government’s concern about what it should prioritize,” said Kim Heon-joo, deputy minister for planning and coordination at the ministry. The ministry compiled the 2024 budget focusing on investments for the future. , such as protecting the truly vulnerable people in society, expanding essential medical care to protect people’s lives, overcoming the declining birth rate, and promoting strategic industries”.

The 2024 budget will be finalized later this year following the deliberations of the National Assembly.