South Korea's public hospital share less than one-tenth of OECD average

South Korea's public healthcare infrastructure has deteriorated significantly over an extended period amid the healthcare vacancy crisis, leaving the country's share of public medical institutions far below that of other OECD members.

Data submitted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Jeon Jin-suk of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee show that public healthcare institutions accounted for 4.8 percent of all medical facilities in 2025, down from 5.3 percent in 2017 — a drop of 0.5 percentage points. Over the same period, the share of public hospital beds fell 0.6 percentage points, from 9.2 percent to 8.6 percent, while the total number of public beds declined by 4,018, from 64,794 to 60,776.

The gap with OECD peers is particularly stark. Ministry data show that as of 2024, public medical institutions made up 5.3 percent of all facilities in South Korea — less than one-tenth of the OECD average of 54.6 percent. The public bed share of 9.4 percent was similarly less than one-seventh of the OECD average of 70.9 percent.

The government's second basic plan for public healthcare (2021–2025), adopted in 2021, had set a target of building or expanding at least 20 regional public hospitals and increasing regional public hospital beds from roughly 10,000 to more than 15,000 by 2025. Instead, the number of public beds fell from 63,909 to 60,776 — a decrease of 3,133.

Fiscal spending also fell well short of the plan's targets. The second basic plan called for total investment of 4.66 trillion won ($3.47 billion) over 2021–2025, but actual spending reached only 2.99 trillion won — 64.3 percent of the planned amount. The shortfall came to 1.66 trillion won.

A significant number of the plan's key performance indicators also fell short of their 2025 targets as of 2024.

The second basic plan aimed to reduce the preventable mortality rate to 30.7 deaths per 100,000 people by 2025 and narrow the regional gap to 1.27 times. As of 2024, however, the preventable mortality rate stood at 40.7 per 100,000 — well above the target.

The regional disparity in preventable mortality actually widened, from 1.42 times in 2021 to 1.48 times in 2024. The rate of unplanned hospital readmissions also rose over the same period, from 2.0 times to 2.6 times.

"Public healthcare is an essential social foundation that the state must take responsibility for in order to protect the lives and safety of the people," Jeon said. She called on the Lee Jae-myung government to swiftly establish a third basic plan for public healthcare, with concrete targets for expanding public hospitals and beds and a stable fiscal support framework, so that its push to strengthen public healthcare can translate into tangible results.