President Park Geun-hye on Thursday visited a provincial nursing home to promote a pilot telemedicine program designed to offer the elderly and others in hard-to-reach areas easier access to quality medical services, her office Cheong Wa Dae said.

Her visit to the nursing home in Seosan, a city 151 kilometers south of Seoul, was the latest in the recent series of on-site tours to promote various government policies and evaluate whether they have been properly implemented.


Park met with those who receive around-the-clock care at the facility, their families and the nursing staff. During their talks, the president highlighted the need to expand telemedicine to help more people benefit from the Internet-based medical care platform.

In the nursing home more than 70 people have benefited from telemedicine. They suffer from various chronic illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes and dementia.

The nursing home has a designated doctor who visits every other week. But those who need constant medical attention and counseling have used telemedicine, the presidential office said in a press release.

South Korea, one of the world's most wired countries with a fast-graying population, has been pushing to expand its telemedicine program. First launched on a trial basis in 2008, it aims to provide greater access to medical services to the elderly, the physically handicapped, frontline troops and those in remote areas that lack medical professionals.

The president has also made sales pitches for her country's telemedicine program during her overseas trips in recent years.

South Korea has signed a series of arrangements on bilateral cooperation in telemedicine with Peru, Brazil, China, Chile, Mongolia and other countries.

But the telemedicine program has faced strong opposition from local doctors, who have raised the possibility of misdiagnoses.

Others fear that some neighborhood clinics could be forced to shut down due to telemedicine.

As of April, some 278 facilities, including 73 military installations, 32 correctional facilities, 20 deep-sea fishing boats and 20 rural community centers, ran the pilot telemedicine program, according to government data.   (Yonhap)