19/12/2025
Statement: — Ensure the Participation of PwD in the Medical Innovation Committee Launched in December 2025, as a Forum for Strengthening Regional and Essential Healthcare and Preparing for a Super-Aged Society
The government has recently launched the Medical Innovation Committee, grounded in public participation and social deliberation, and has identified the strengthening of regional and essential healthcare and responses to a super-aged society as its core tasks. This is meaningful as an official expression of the government’s will to address structural problems across the healthcare system through social dialogue.
However, we express deep concern that, within the discussion structure of the Medical Innovation Committee—which claims public participation and representativeness—the participation of PwD who represent the disability community is not institutionally guaranteed. This is not merely a shortcoming in committee composition; it reveals a structural limitation whereby discussions on healthcare reform continue to exclude disability.
Article 35 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea guarantees the right to health for all citizens and stipulates the state’s obligation to protect it. In addition, the Act on the Prohibition of Discrimination against PwD and Remedies Therefor and the Act on the Guarantee of the Right to Health and Access to Medical Services for PwD clearly define the health rights of PwD as a responsibility of the state. Furthermore, Article 25 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of PwD (CRPD), ratified by Korea, internationally affirms the right of PwD to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health without discrimination.
Nevertheless, the reality of the healthcare system remains far removed from these constitutional, legal, and international commitments. PwD have not been duly considered despite the need for earlier application of the Long-Term Care Insurance for the Elderly; they continue to face access barriers related to disability characteristics in the use of integrated nursing and caregiving services; and they have long been excluded from community-based integrated care. Moreover, during the COVID-19 response, systematic epidemiological investigations that took PwD into account were not conducted, resulting in insufficient production and management of relevant statistics. Disability variables are also not included as key indicators across national health and medical statistics. Consequently, the characteristics and needs of PwD are continuously excluded from policy-making processes. Without concerted efforts to address the dire and lagging state of healthcare for persons with disabilities, these disparities will only widen and deepen.
Issues concerning PwD are by no means the special concerns of a particular group. More than half of the older population already experiences disability, and in a super-aged Korean society, disability and health issues are universal risks that anyone may face over the life course. Treating PwD as exceptional beings separate from non-disabled people and relegating them to the periphery of medical innovation discussions runs directly counter to the values of inclusiveness and fairness that our society must pursue.
True medical innovation must not stop at formal equality. Rather than applying the same system to everyone, it must be based on the principle of “proportionate universalism,” which allocates resources according to levels of need and vulnerability. Universal systems that fail to consider disability ultimately exacerbate health disparities and undermine the overall credibility and sustainability of the healthcare system.
The success of medical innovation depends not only on what is discussed, but on who participates in the discussion. A healthcare system designed without the inclusion of PwD cannot constitute a substantive response to a super-aged society, nor can it be deemed a fair and democratic healthcare reform.
Accordingly, we strongly demand that the Medical Innovation Committee include PwD who represent the disability community throughout the entire deliberative process. This is not a matter of optional consideration, but the minimum requirement to fulfill the state’s obligations as stipulated by the Constitution, laws, and international human rights norms, and to realize in practice the public deliberation and democracy that the Medical Innovation Committee itself has proclaimed.
Medical innovation that excludes PwD can never be complete. We once again strongly urge the Medical Innovation Committee to function as a genuine forum for public deliberation that guarantees the right to health for all people.
< Demands >
△ The Medical Innovation Committee shall be composed to include committee members who are PwD representing the disability community.
△ In all matters, including the development of medical innovation measures, the Committee shall consider PwD and review the impacts on them, reflecting a disability-inclusive perspective.
December 19, 2025
- Korea Council for Health and Medical Care for PwD
- Korea Federation of Disability Organizations (KOFDO)
- Korea Disability Organizations Joint Council
photo credit: https://healthlaw.org/our-work/policy/disability-rights/
