Page 282 - 2020 Defence White Paper

Hospital was disbanded in October 2020, and the Armed Forces Capital Hospital will
open a trauma center to secure its own ability to provide complete medical treatment
for patients with military trauma such as gunshot wounds and blast injuries.
With regard to division-level medical corps, pilot projects to adjust functions with
the goal of reinforcing primary care functions of division-level and below medical
corps are being carried out at two divisions in 2019 and four divisions in 2020. In
addition, it plans to pursue the opening of division medical corps as clinic-level
medical institutions by strengthening the outpatient care function such as replacing
and upgrading old video and inspection equipment and assigning additional 3-5
short-term medical off cers by 2022.

Improving the Use of As most servicemembers visit military hospitals using
Military Hospitals outpatient buses, a high concentration of patients
gather at a certain period of time, and the procedures
for servicemembers’ families to enter military hospitals for visits are complicated.
To resolve these issues, the MND is making efforts to improve the convenience of
using military hospitals.
First, the MND is increasing the number of outpatient buses, adjusting the work

hours of medical staff to match the visiting hours of servicemembers and opening
additional consultation rooms for departments in high demand to ensure that
servicemembers can receive satisfactory treatment through outpatient services.
With regard to medical access of servicemembers in the front line in particular,
the outpatient system for each region has been reorganized by more than doubling
the number of buses for hospitals supporting front corps. In 2021, the MND plans
to improve the conditions for utilizing military medical institutions by consigning
to the private sector the operation of outpatient buses which had been run by
servicemembers at division-level medical corps in some of the frontline areas with
poor traff c environment.
At the same time, for the Armed Forces Capital Hospital facilities located outside
the military installations protection zones that require access control, full entry of
family members of servicemembers has been allowed without any restrictions as in
civilian hospitals, and guide personnel has been assigned. Furthermore, the MND
plans to conduct further review to determine whether to apply the same scheme to all
other military hospitals.

Improving the Emergency If an emergency patient occurs in units in the
Evacuation Capabilities forward and remote areas without any medical

2020 Defense White Paper