[Editorial] Battle over hospital

The central government is bracing for a long legal battle against the government of South Gyeongsang Province to salvage Jinju Medical Hospital, which the province’s stubborn governor, Hong Joon-pyo, is determined to abolish.

Last week, the province’s council, dominated by Hong backers, revised a municipal ordinance to liquidate the 103-year-old medical institution, defying condemnation from the ruling and opposition parties as well as the medical community.

The council’s act came about two weeks after the provincial government shut down the nation’s second-oldest public hospital, citing its chronic operational deficit and its reform-resistant trade union.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare is seeking to prevent the revised ordinance from going into effect. It has officially asked Hong to demand that the council reconsider its decision.

But the daredevil governor has rejected the request, saying he will not be dictated to by the ministry concerning the hospital because jurisdiction over it lies with his provincial government.

This leaves the ministry no choice but to rely on the last resort ― to take the case to the Supreme Court. The ministry says that if the new ordinance is promulgated in the following weeks, it will file a motion with the court to suspend its execution.

The ministry also plans to file a suit to nullify the revised ordinance, which it believes to be in violation of the law on the management of state subsidies. The law requires a local government to win approval from the central government for the disposal of any property acquired with state subsidies.

Jinju Medical Center has been subsidized by the state but the government and council in South Geyongsang Province decided to dissolve it unilaterally and, furthermore, arranged for its residual property to be vested in the province, not the state.

The ministry’s intervention is justified as it should not let a provincial government pull the plug on a local medical center just because it incurs losses.

If the South Gyeongsang provincial government is allowed to abolish Jinju Medical Center, it could encourage other local governments to follow suit, pushing the already shaky local public health care system to the brink of collapse.

Currently, there are 34 local medical centers in Korea. Among them, only seven managed to earn a profit in 2011. The remaining hospitals, like the one in Jinju, have been suffering chronic losses. Their combined deficit amounted to 65.6 billion won in 2011.

But local medical centers are indispensable for providing health and medical services to local residents, especially disadvantaged people. And they carry out health and medical projects that private medical institutions cannot be expected to undertake.

After all, the fate of Jinju Medical Center is likely to be determined by the Supreme Court. The problem is that the looming legal fight between the state and the South Gyeongsang provincial government could drag out for years.

Until the court comes up with a verdict, the hospital will remain closed, causing serious inconvenience to local residents. This situation would benefit no one.

Hong has contributed to bringing the problems with the nation’s public health care system into the spotlight. But his approach is not the right way to resolve them.