Accident spurs hospital dream

Michael Paik

Michael Paik, the executive director of the charity organization Purme Foundation, is delighted these days.
Under Paik’s leadership, the Purme Foundation recently opened a dental clinic to serve low-income patients.
“Patients treated at the clinic can now enjoy being able to chew the food they eat,” Paik said.
Paik located the Nanum Dental Clinic on the first floor of the building that houses the foundation headquarters. Nanum means “to share” in Korean.
“Besides financial issues, disabled people have problems visiting hospitals and clinics on the second floor or higher in buildings,” Paik said. Currently 10 volunteers, including dentists and nurses, operate the facility.
However, the clinic is just a small part of Paik’s vision. He dreams of establishing a rehabilitation hospital for the disabled, where patients can be treated with advanced medical technology.
Paik is somewhat surprised to have ended up working in the charity field. He was a successful journalist at CBS and the Dong-A Ilbo, both major media companies in Korea. In 1996 he was able to take a study break in Germany for two years.
But destiny changed Paik’s life on a stopover in Scotland before returning to Korea from Germany in 1998.
Paik was in the driver’s seat of a car, pulled over on the side of a highway while his wife was getting their daughter’s jacket from the trunk. Suddenly another car crashed into theirs. When Paik regained consciousness, he found he had been thrown out of his car and somehow landed under the other car. “This is how I die,” Paik thought.
Bystanders gathered and got him out. His wife, who had been directly hit, was on the ground with blood all over her legs. Their daughter was still in the car crying.
With that, everything changed for Paik and his family. Paik’s wife, Hwang Hye-gyeong, lost her left leg in the accident. Paik quit his job as a journalist and decided to devote himself to establishing a rehabilitation facility for the disabled.
“The hospital in Scotland didn’t have state-of-the-art facilities or equipment,” Paik said. “But when the nurses gave injections to my wife, they explained everything to her, even though she was unconscious. The doctors explaiend my wife’s state to me for more than an hour every day. They promised to do their best to bring her back, over and over again.”
When he returned to Korea, however, care was different. The waiting lists for rehabilitation hospitals were long, and once admitted, the treatment was inadequate, Paik said.
That’s when he pledged to open a rehabilitation hospital. Money became the big issue, and he resolved to establish a foundation to remedy the situation. He opened Oktoberfest, a German brewery in Gangnam, southern Seoul in 2001. Another branch of the franchise opened in Jongno, downtown Seoul. The brewery donated 10 percent of its sales to his newly-formed Purme Foundation, as well as another 100 million won ($107,400).
The foundation got a huge lift in support from Kim Soung-soo, president of SungKongHoe University, who now serves as chairman of the foundation, and Kang Ji-won, a lawyer.
Moreover, when Paik’s wife received compensation for the accident from the insurance company after years of lawsuits, she contributed the entire award of 900 million won to Purme. She had already given 100 million won, making her donation a total of 1 billion won.
Despite all his accomplishments, Paik says there’s still more to be done to build the rehabilitation hospital of his dreams. “Several organizations have promised to give, but only after a concrete vision has been established,” Paik said. This poses a problem. He needs funds, or at least land, to draw up a concrete plan. “We are currently negotiating with a number of local governments, asking them to donate land, and then Purme can build the facilities,” he said.
Inflexible government bureaucracy is another obstacle for Paik. “They put regulations in front of common sense,” he said. “I think it’s because they have nothing to lose when they just do their work and don’t have to care about anything else.”
Paik said plans will be in place by the end of the year. “I am quite sure that we will be able to secure donated land before 2008,” he said.
Paik will not depend on help from others to build the hospital. “You can get help once or twice, but not more than three times,” he said. He wants to operate the hospital as an independent organization. “It won’t be a low-level facility for just the poor and disadvantaged. It will be a rehabilitation shelter for everybody who wants proper treatment.”

By Hwang Young-jin Staff Writer [yhwang@joongang.co.kr]