일제강점기 수원지역의 근대 의료기관과 의료접근성

Abstract

This study aims to identify issues of medical accessibility within local communities in the Suwon region during the Japanese Colonial Period. Suwon, which transformed into a modern colonial city through the late Joseon period and the Japanese Colonial Period, established a modern medical environment relatively early in the colonial era. In the Suwon region during the Japanese Colonial Period, the modern medical institutions identified consisted of 1 public medical institution, 20 private hospitals, and 10 Limited medical practitioners(限地醫). However, the development, population, and population density of the Suwon region were concentrated in Suwon-myeon(面) (Suwon-eup(邑) after 1931), the regional center. The same was true of modern medical institutions. As of December 1935, 15 of the 19 modern medical institutions identified in the Suwon region were located in Suwon-eup. This was because Suwon-eup was the regional center, had an overwhelmingly higher population and population density than other myeon, and, in particular, was home to nearly half of the Japanese residents in the region. This medical environment in the Suwon region generated issues of medical accessibility within the area, not only because of the high cost of medical care but also in two distinct respects. First, problems arose according to one’s place of residence. Patients in myeon without modern medical institutions had to travel to nearby eup or myeon where hospitals were located, which required considerable time and expense. In some cases, patients even died while searching for another doctor after being refused treatment by local physicians. Second, disparities in medical access were evident along ethnic lines. In 1935, while Koreans made up 97.89 percent of the population and operated only nine hospitals, the Japanese—just 2 percent of the population—ran as many as eight hospitals. These Structural inequalities within the Suwon region remained unresolved and persisted throughout the Japanese Colonial Period.