The trauma surgery training center at Korea University Guro Hospital, which was facing an operational shutdown due to a lack of government budget support, will receive assistance from the Seoul city government.
According to Korea University Guro Hospital on the 6th, the trauma surgery training center will operate without interruption after receiving 500 million won from the disaster management fund of the Seoul city government.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said through his Facebook on that day, "We will protect the front line of life," and noted, "We have decided to maintain the training function by investing 500 million won from the disaster management fund of Seoul city."
He added, "This place has produced 20 life savers and treated 571 trauma patients in just one year two years ago, making it an essential existence," and, "We have decided to invest disaster management funds from the Seoul city into this place and to expand the specialist training system to other hospitals as well."
A representative from Korea University Guro Hospital stated, "We are currently in a position to receive funding support plans from Seoul city over the phone."
The trauma surgery training center at Korea University Guro Hospital is designed to train trauma specialists. Designated as a focused training hospital in the Seoul area in 2014, it has been operating for 11 years. The Ministry of Health and Welfare supports some of the annual project budget of about 900 million won and has trained over 20 trauma specialists until recently.
However, as the budget for related projects was fully cut from this year's government budget, it has become difficult to receive further support. Korea University Guro Hospital decided to temporarily suspend operations of the training center and plans to resume operations after securing future budgets. If the support from Seoul city is realized, it seems that the training center can continue to operate without issues.
A representative from Korea University Guro Hospital explained that the budget support from Seoul city does not meet the previous government support scale of 900 million won, stating, "The previous government support was not fully allocated to our training center either," and added, "Operations are possible as long as there are sufficient resources needed according to the scale of training."