By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter


The interior of a VIP room at Severance Hospital

Severance Hospital in Sinchon, western Seoul, has opened luxury hospital wards for VIP patients with accommodation fees costing 1.7 million won ($1,700) a day.
The hospital, operated by Yonsei University, has set up two VIP sick wards at the top of its new 20-story building, which opened last month.

The 50 pyong (165 square meters) special ward has two rooms, one for the patient and another for relatives. There is also a meeting room that can accommodate eight people, a living room and a kitchen.

The daily fee of 1.7 million won is the most expensive in the nation and about 179 times higher than that for a ward shared by six patients, which costs 9,500 won each.

A patient who stays there for a month will thus have to pay about 51 million won.

Those staying in a four-person ward at Severance Hospital pay about 13,000 won each, and in a two-patient ward about 100,000-200,000 won. A single room costs about 250,000 won.

Five patients have stayed in the VIP wards since the new building’s opening early last month, with most staying one day or two for regular medical checkups, said an employee of Severance’s public relations department.

Currently, one of them is occupied by a patient suffering from a serious illness, and the other is reserved for a patient who will enter the hospital next week, the worker added.

``When we built the new building, we decided to prepare the high quality wards, larger than wards in other hospitals, to meet the demand of VIP customers,’’ she said.

Other prestigious hospitals in Korea also operate special rooms for VIP patients, but the ward fees are not as expensive as those at Severance.

Seoul National University Hospital has two VIP wards of 25 pyong (82.5 square meters) and costing 900,000 won per day.

The hospital had operated a ward for South Korean presidents in the past, but changed it to accomodate VIPs as the government in the 1990s had decided not to use it.

Samsung Medical Center has four high-quality wards of 21 pyong (69.3 square meters). The daily cost is 700,000 won, but the price doubles if a patient wants to combine two wards.

Asan Medical Center in southeastern Seoul also operates a special ward with a separate room for family members.

The 18-pyong ward (59.4 square meters) has a great view of the Han River. The patient can access the Internet and be served by top nurses.

rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr