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The hospital’s obstetric service had been down to two doctors, a director in his 70s and a specialist in his 60s. When the specialist moved to resign, the director decided he could not carry on at his age, the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported, citing the city government’s Aug. 6 announcement.

The Seoul Shinmun reported that the closure covers the entire hospital, not the delivery room alone.

Opened in 1986, Jeil was one of the largest hospitals in the area, with 79 beds and departments in obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, anesthesiology and pediatrics. It has handled more than 20,000 deliveries, according to The Korea Times.

Deliveries once ran at about 400 a year before falling into the 200s, then to 107 in 2024 and 108 in 2025.

The hospital recorded 58 through June this year, an average of eight or nine a month, while losing roughly 150 million won ($102,000) a month, The Korea Times reported.

Miryang’s population slipped to 99,956 in June 2025, below 100,000 for the first time since it peaked at 206,115 in 1966, Yonhap reported, citing city and interior ministry registration data. The city attributed the fall to deaths running about five times births in a place where 47% of residents are 60 or older.

Miryang funded 1 billion won ($678,000) of facilities and equipment at the hospital in 2013 and has provided 500 million won ($339,000) a year in operating support since, the Gyeongnam Ilbo reported.

Expectant mothers will now travel to Yangsan or Busan, which takes 30-45 minutes by car. The city says it will pre-register them with the 119 Safety Call emergency line and operate seven ambulances equipped for emergency births in cooperation with the Miryang Fire Station, while routing severe and high-risk cases to Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital.

Some 189 women registered with local health centers as of July will receive counseling and monitoring, with those past 36 weeks checked at least twice a month.

Nowhere to give birth

The Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service reported in July that 436 institutions nationwide performed deliveries in 2025, down 29.7% from 620 in 2015, and that only 260 of South Korea’s 1,571 obstetric clinics and hospitals actually deliver babies.

A study by the Ubuntu Health Policy Lab for lawmaker Seo Young-seok, reported in March by Rapportianfound 84 of 252 cities, counties and districts with no delivery facility at all. The 24,176 children born to families in those areas accounted for 10.1% of all births.

The Ministry of Data and Statistics recorded 254,500 births in 2025, the highest total since 2010 and a 6.8% rise, Bloomberg reported, as the fertility rate climbed from a record low of 0.72 in 2023 to 0.75 and then 0.80.

Births in the first quarter of this year rose 14.8% to 75,013, the largest first-quarter increase since records began in 1981, with the Korea Herald reporting a quarterly fertility rate of 0.95.

Eight counties in South Gyeongsang Province already have no maternity hospital, The Korea Times reported.

On Jeju, the Seohae Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic closes this month after 27 years and about 1,000 deliveries a year, roughly a third of all births on the island, with Money Today attributing the decision to exhaustion among staff carrying round-the-clock emergency coverage. Six maternity hospitals will remain on the island.

A woman 29 weeks pregnant in Cheongju was refused by five hospitals in May and transported as far as Busan, where she lost the pregnancy.

Jeju airlifted nine high-risk patients off the island in 2024 and 18 last year, with 10 more so far in 2026.

Medical experts quoted by the Hankook Ilbo said ambulance networks are a stopgap, calling for new reimbursement rates for provincial delivery facilities, higher compensation for high-risk births and state liability in maternity disputes.

A regional health official told the paper that without a substantial expansion of public maternity infrastructure at regional hubs, the disappearance of the remaining provincial delivery facilities is only a matter of time.