Last year, 2.01 million foreign patients came to Korea for medical care, topping 2 million for the first time. It was the highest figure since statistics began in 2009. For migrants living in Korea, hospital use is a different story.
According to Statistics Korea's 2024 Survey on Immigrants' Living Conditions and Labour Force, about 6% of migrants in Korea were sick at some point in the past year but could not go to a hospital. Of those, 38.7% cited difficulty communicating as the reason.
Many services, but open on weekday daytime
It is not that no system exists. The Ministry of Justice's Immigration Contact Center (1345) provides counseling in 20 languages including Korean, and supports three-way interpretation when administrative and public agencies handle matters involving foreigners. The Danuri Call Center (1577-1366) offers counseling in 15 languages and runs three-way calls connecting callers with hospitals, police, banks and schools.
Family centers nationwide have interpretation and translation staff who help with interpretation at hospitals, police stations, schools and administrative offices. In May last year, the Seoul Metropolitan Government formed the "Donghaeng Medical Interpretation Support Group" and began in-person hospital interpretation in 10 languages, including Thai. Gyeonggi Provincial Medical Center Icheon Hospital also lists interpretation in nine languages, including Thai and Vietnamese.
The problem is hours and conditions. 1345 operates from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays, but after 6 p.m. counseling is available only in Korean, English and Chinese. On weekday evenings, counseling in Vietnamese or Thai is unavailable, and no weekend hours are listed.
The conditions Seoul has announced for its medical interpretation service are an application three days before the appointment, use on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., up to four hours per session and four times a year. The on-site interpretation service staffed by marriage migrants, which the Yeoju Family Center in Gyeonggi Province began piloting this month, likewise requires weekday daytime use, up to three hours, and an application three days in advance. It may end early if the budget runs out.
1345's three-way interpretation is a service that officials can connect to when they cannot communicate with someone at a community service center or immigration counter. It is used only if users know the service exists and ask for it.
An analysis of 1345 consultation data published on the Public Data Portal found that the "Village Lawyers for Foreigners" guidance menu was selected 49,705 times in total last year. The village lawyer program is a Ministry of Justice service that connects foreigners with free legal counseling. Vietnamese accounted for 5,928 selections, or 17.6 per 1,000 Vietnamese nationals residing in Korea, and Thai for 341, or 2.0 per 1,000. The pattern matches the gap in counselor-connected calls identified in Part 1.
For migrants who work during weekday daytime hours, interpretation that is open only during weekday daytime hours is hard to use.
A, who is from Thailand, has worked in interpretation and translation at a multicultural support organization. A said they know family centers have interpreters but rarely use them in practice. The hours are fixed and they have their own work, so it is hard to make the times match, A said.
Families fill the gap
When public interpretation is hard to use, people rely on family. A said that among people they know, in households with children, it is common for a child to serve as the interpreter. Children around middle-school age who can speak some Korean go with their parents to hospitals or government offices, A said. At government offices, the business is mostly visas and administrative documents related to the children, A added.
Research in Korea shows a similar picture. A study by a Seoul National University College of Nursing team, Jeong Ye-seul and Bang Kyung-sook, published in June last year in the international journal Children, conducted in-depth interviews with 10 adolescents aged 13 to 18 from marriage-migrant families. The adolescents accepted helping their mothers read and write Korean as natural help within the family. When their Korean fathers shared the role, they did not feel much burden, but when fathers were less involved and their own emotional and academic needs went unmet, it led to psychological stress. The researchers concluded that support systems are needed so that adolescents do not shoulder parental roles alone.
Research on Korean immigrant families abroad points the same way. A study by a Korea-U.S. research team including Yonsei University researcher Lee Eun-kyung, published in June this year in the international journal Child & Youth Care Forum, interviewed six pairs of parents and children aged 12 to 17 in Korean immigrant families in the United States. Children's interpreting increased conversation within families, but in some families it caused stress and conflict.
Children interpreting for parents is also a way family members help one another. But when children are left to handle situations that require specialized knowledge, such as medical consultations or residence documents, it is because public interpretation does not reach those families. In the United States, a regulation applying to health programs that receive federal financial assistance (45 CFR 92.201) bars relying on minor children to interpret. The only exception is temporary use in an emergency while a qualified interpreter is being found.
Medical interpretation sustained by private groups, while public systems take a first step
Specialized medical interpretation remains outside the formal system. In June, the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported on a public medical interpretation training session run by Donghaeng for Realizing Migrants' Right to Health (Donghaeng), a private organization in Daegu, noting that while telephone interpretation systems for foreigners exist, specialized medical interpretation has not been institutionalized.
According to the Kyongbuk Ilbo, Donghaeng handled 816 medical interpretation cases from 2024 through May this year. The number rose from 125 in the first year to 480 the following year, and stood at 211 this year through May. Some regions, including South Jeolla Province and Busan, run public medical interpretation systems, but Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province have no publicly funded system, the newspaper reported.
Gyeonggi Province has taken a first step toward institutionalization. One-third of long-term foreign residents in Korea live in Gyeonggi. According to the Ministry of Justice's monthly statistics, registered foreigners and overseas Koreans with reported domestic residence in Gyeonggi numbered 748,682 at the end of July this year, 33.3% of the national total.
The Gyeonggi Province Ordinance on Improving Foreigners' Access to Public Health and Building a Cooperation System passed the Gyeonggi Provincial Council on June 24. It covers foreigners without health insurance who have lived in the province for 90 days or more and are recognized as needing support, with priority given to pregnant women, infants and young children, and suspected or confirmed infectious disease cases. The province said it plans to strengthen links with the six public hospitals under the Gyeonggi Provincial Medical Center and with public health centers, secure partner medical institutions, and build a system for medical interpretation, counseling and accompaniment support.
From 1345 and the Danuri Call Center to family centers, local government medical interpretation and public hospital interpretation, there is no shortage of services. But their hours, languages and eligibility vary, and most are concentrated in weekday daytime hours. Families, and sometimes children, fill the gap.
The first thing that can be done now is to group these scattered services by situation and publicize them in migrants' own languages. The next is to extend interpretation to hours that working migrants can use.
[AD] Korea Press Foundation (한국언론진흥재단)
