'We are desperate': Residents perform prostration march to push for Suncheon National University medical school

Citizens' rally urges national medical school for South Jeolla Province's eastern region

The Citizens' Committee for Establishing a National Medical School and Hospital in South Jeolla Province's Eastern Region held a citywide rally Friday at the fountain plaza of the Culture and Health Center and the open plaza of Suncheon National University, calling for a medical school to be established at the university.

Despite heavy rain, the event drew Assembly member Kim Moon-su of the local constituency, Suncheon Mayor Son Hun-mo, Suncheon City Council Speaker Yoo Young-cheol, city council members, and civic and social organizations, all of whom said a national medical school and affiliated hospital must be placed at Suncheon National University.

Kim, Son and Yoo performed a traditional prostration march — bowing to the ground with every third step — in the rain to press their case that Suncheon National University, which serves a high volume of emergency patients from the Yeosu industrial complex and the Gwangyang steelworks, is the right location for the medical school.

The citizens' committee urged that the 840,000 residents of the eastern region — including the 700,000 people of Yeosu, Suncheon and Gwangyang, as well as those of Boseong, Goheung, Gurye and Gokseong-gun — are not seeking special treatment, but are demanding that the region's vast medical needs, its industrial and emergency healthcare realities, and Suncheon National University's capacity for medical education and hospital development be evaluated fairly and by the same standards applied to the western region.

The committee also raised concerns that the so-called "acceptance pledge" or "compliance confirmation" that the Gwangju-South Jeolla integrated special city is demanding from both universities must have its wording, legal basis, administrative effect and scope clearly disclosed. Requiring universities to accept results before fully disclosing the evaluation criteria and underlying data, the committee said, inverts the proper order of procedural legitimacy.

Min Hyeong-bae, mayor of the Gwangju-South Jeolla integrated special city, had earlier announced plans to commission an evaluation by the South Jeolla Research Institute and recommend one of the two universities to the Ministry of Education as the medical school candidate on Sunday. Critics have argued, however, that the ministry's decision to delegate the recommendation authority to a local government is a flawed selection process that is stoking conflict between the Mokpo and Suncheon areas.

Both universities have already submitted their proposals for establishing a new national medical school in South Jeolla Province. A two-day review is set to take place Saturday and Sunday at an undisclosed location, with a decision on which university will host the medical school expected as early as Sunday.