Samsung Medical Center - Social Service

Social Service

As an institute providing service of public utility, SMC has provided volunteer medical services for more than 50,000 patients since it opened in 1994. It has also been engaged in support activities worth more than KRW 37 billion by providing volunteer medical services for social welfare facilities, remote communities with low accessibility of care and through charitable work for disaster areas home and abroad. SMC launched “Medical Volunteer's Group” for systemic Volunteer medical services in 2006, has developed the “Free Medical Services: Sharing Happiness” to provide volunteer medical service for residents in farming and fishing communities. It is also providing opportunities for medical treatment, rehabilitation and social participation for the impoverished patients by giving support for their medical expenses, in an effort to become a warm and caring hospital for the people.

Samsung Medical Center is also engaged in charitable activities that are in connection with affiliates of Samsung Group. Its major activities include the “Bringing back bright smiles” project, which provides free plastic surgery and rehabilitation programs for low-income patients with facial deformities, the “Finding the Harmony of the world” project which supports artificial cochlea implant operations and rehabilitations for hearing-impaired people, the “Heart for Eye” which provides eyesight recovery operations for low-income visually impaired children, and the “Heart to Heart” project supporting free operations for Vietnamese children with congenital heart disease. These activities all enable underprivileged low-income disabled people to live with a better view on life. In addition, SMC operates the “Apple Tree of Hope” donation campaign on a constant basis. The campaign supports hospital expenses for the impoverished patients, and operates hospital schools for long-stay child patients to enable them to continue their studies that may have been suspended due to their illnesses.

It also provides medical service to disaster areas abroad by visiting them, including the Kobe earthquake (1995), the Taiwan earthquake (2006) and the tsunami in Southeast Asia (2004).