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Ajou hospital search prompts doctors' demand for emergency-room safeguards

A medical association spokesman warns that threatened resignations could disrupt children's emergency care across southern Gyeonggi Province and the Seoul metropolitan area.

Channel: YTN ·

South KoreaStory of November 1, 2026Trari Newsroom

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커지는 '아주대 압수수색' 후폭풍...경찰 사과에도 센터장도 사표 / YTN

Things we can learn from the video

Press to jump

0:24Kim traces the investigation to a child's death in July and the subsequent police response.
1:06Seven specialists intend to resign; Kim links their decision to police responses during parliamentary scrutiny.
4:00Kim warns that staffing losses at Ajou could disrupt pediatric emergency care across the wider region.
7:16Medical leaders pledge cooperation with investigations while challenging the search; Lee confirms submitting her resignation.
9:16Kim cites electronic medical-record systems while challenging alteration concerns and requesting safeguards for searches.
11:21Kim proposes investigation guidelines and legislative protections intended to preserve essential treatment.

Doctors are seeking restrictions on police searches of emergency rooms and intensive-care units after an investigation at Ajou University Hospital prompted specialists to submit resignations or announce plans to leave.

South Korea's YTN (Yonhap Television News) examines the dispute in an interview with Korean Medical Association spokesman Kim Sung-keun. His central argument is that investigating a death must not jeopardize treatment for other patients.

The case began after a child died at the hospital in July, Kim says. A police investigation followed, including a search of the pediatric emergency center on September 30. The hospital is in Suwon, in Gyeonggi Province, south of Seoul.

According to the broadcast, seven of the center's nine specialists have expressed an intention to resign. Center director Lee Ji-sook says in press-conference footage that she submitted her resignation to the hospital director after failing to receive satisfactory answers about how the search warrant was sought and executed. Submission does not establish that her departure has taken effect.

Kim says parliamentary scrutiny initially gave doctors reason to expect procedural changes. But police officials' subsequent insistence that they had followed proper procedures, and their responses during an October 27 hearing, left the specialists doubtful that meaningful reform would follow. The broadcast reports that a police apology has not resolved the dispute.

The interview makes clear that the medical organizations are not seeking immunity from investigation. In the press-conference footage, Korean Society of Pediatric Emergency Medicine president Ryu Jung-min says emergency rooms are not exempt from scrutiny and that doctors will cooperate in establishing the truth.

Kim instead argues for safeguards governing compulsory searches in spaces where treatment cannot stop. He also challenges concerns about medical-record alteration by pointing to the characteristics of electronic medical-record systems.

The practical concern is staffing. Kim describes Ajou's center as an important regional hub and warns that departures could affect children's emergency care well beyond the hospital. He calls for investigation guidelines and legislative measures, including limits on criminal liability in medical-accident cases, framed around protecting patients and maintaining essential care.

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