Frontline physicians say South Korea's stroke safety net is under threat after budgets tied to regional and local cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease centers were cut by 20% this year, undercutting the government's stated push to strengthen regional and essential medical care. They argue that stable funding is needed both for center operations and for the specialists who deliver definitive treatment, so that stroke patients anywhere in the country can be treated within the golden hour.
The Korean Stroke Society said on the 7th that it held the 2026 Korean Stroke Network (KSN 2026) at Asan Medical Center in Seoul on the 5th, where participants discussed ways to strengthen the stroke safety net from prehospital transport through specialized acute care.
Park Hee-kwon, a professor of neurology at Inha University Hospital, pointed to the 20% cut in funding for local and regional cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease centers this year. "Operating funds needed to maintain the 24-hour care system, specialized staff and infrastructure that these centers have provided have been reduced," Park said. The government has recently created preferential fee schedules for regional providers and is shifting its support toward stronger health insurance reimbursement in so-called essential care fields such as pediatrics and obstetrics, Park said, but reimbursement remains centered on procedures and surgery and therefore does not cover the full stroke patient population.
"Patients who actually need a procedure or surgery account for only about 20% of all stroke patients, and the remaining 80% also require specialized care including acute-phase diagnosis, drug therapy, intensive monitoring and management of complications," Park said. "Along with reimbursement for definitive treatment, centers must maintain their overall capacity and operating base so they can treat all acute stroke patients."
Physicians attending the event agreed that it is more important to assess the level of care a patient needs before arrival at a hospital and transport the patient directly to an appropriate center, rather than moving the patient to another hospital after arrival. To that end, they said, regional care networks linking the 119 emergency service, local medical institutions and specialized stroke centers should be strengthened around regional cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease centers.
The government shares that direction. Cho Young-dae, an official at the Ministry of Health and Welfare's essential health care policy division, said the ministry is "building a self-sufficient regional care system across large, mid-sized and small care districts so that patients can receive services matched to the severity of their condition in the area where they live, and strengthening the roles of national university hospitals, regional flagship hospitals and local medical institutions." The ministry aims to raise the share of patients treated within their own region to more than 80% from 75.3%, and the share of critically ill emergency patients arriving within the golden hour to more than 55% from 50.6%.
Cha Jae-kwan, president of the Korean Stroke Society, said stroke care "does not begin after the patient arrives at the hospital, but from the moment symptoms are detected and the patient is transported to an appropriate medical institution through the 119 service." He added that local stroke care infrastructure, the 119 service and specialized treatment institutions must be closely linked so that patients can receive the care they need within the golden hour regardless of where they live.
