Nearly 450,000 life-sustaining treatment suspensions and 3 million accumulated advance letter of intent registration, but...I'm half-decided
Sep 26, 2025
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Seo Young-seok (Democratic Party of Korea), a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee, analyzed the data submitted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the "2024 Annual Report on the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision System" published by the National Bioethics Policy Institute. However, it was confirmed that the rate of self-determination on the suspension of life-sustaining treatment is still about half.
Since the implementation of the system, the number of cases of discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment has increased sharply every year, reaching 70,61 in 2024 alone. Although it decreased slightly (659 cases, 0.9%) compared to 2023 (70,720 cases), the number of implementations reached about 520,000 by August 2025 and reached about 400,000 on a cumulative basis. It shows that life-sustaining treatment decisions are being institutionalized rapidly in our society.
The number of registered advance letter of intent has also steadily increased. The cumulative number of registrations exceeded 3 million as of August 2025, with 332,834 new registrations in the same year. The number of registered organizations also rose 10.8% from 686 in 2023 to 760 in 2024.
The life-sustaining medical decision system is divided into a life-sustaining medical plan prepared by the patient himself or herself at the end of his or her death, a preliminary life-sustaining medical intention letter, and a patient family statement and a family doctor's confirmation letter prepared by the family when the patient is unable to express his or her intention. However, statistics show that considering the purpose of the system, the dependence on family decisions is still high.
In 2018, the first year of the system, the self-determination rate was only 32.4% and exceeded half to 50.8% only in 2024. In other words, one out of two patients is still deciding whether to suspend life-sustaining treatment according to their family's judgment, not their own will. This reality shows that the realization of the system's core purpose, 'Guaranteeing the right to self-determination', is still insufficient.
Representative Seo Young-seok said, `Our society is now in a super-aged society and there are growing concerns about how to end life with dignity"The fact that the cumulative decision to suspend life-sustaining treatment has steadily increased since the system was implemented shows that awareness of well-dying is spreading, but many people still do not know the advance letter of intent system for life-sustaining treatment. " He then stressed that the government should take responsibility to increase awareness and access to the system so that anyone can choose for themselves until the end of their lives, and to lead to a better life beyond dignified death.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
