Hit News Article:
"44 Health and Welfare Agencies Face Parliamentary Audit...Chuseok Holiday Offers No Respite".
Posted to Paperslip on September 23rd, 2025.
Thank you to a Paperslip Contributor for the link.
Translation via ChatGPT.
Some BOLDS ours.
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Paperslip Note:
The translated article below is about S. Korea’s upcoming annual National Audit at the National Assembly. It’s an opportunity to criticize the relevant Korean Government Public Institutions — NCRC (National Center for the Rights of the Child) is obviously the relevant Korean Government Public Institution for Adoptees to criticize during the annual National Audit.
NCRC is under the oversight of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW). NCRC will be audited on October 28th, 2025.
We previously participated in the National Audit in October 2021, to criticize Holt and NCRC for willfully failing to unite a Korean birth father with his twin daughters. In 2020, NCRC had just ONE birth family search worker to serve the needs of ALL Korean Adoptees around the world. Unfortunately, exactly nothing changed at NCRC as the result of our efforts. In fact, in the wake of this effort, NCRC decided to make search harder for Adoptees, by deliberately de-listing the KAS website—on which we had originally found the Korean birth father’s post searching for his twins—which made it impossible to search using Google. This remained the case for years, until only recently in Fall 2025, when after we called NCRC out publicly on its Facebook page, NCRC finally re-listed the KAS website, so that it can once again be efficiently searched using Google. We had previously raised this issue with NCRC on two separate occasions in person at its office in Korea, but NCRC didn’t re-list the KAS website until late 2025.
Our beyond frustrating prior experience with NCRC is why—as soon as we learned in early 2024 that ALL Korean Adoption Agency files would move to NCRC starting July 19th, 2025—we knew that it would likely be a disaster. For this reason, we spent 15 months WARNING KSS Adoptees and ALL Adoptees about the pending transfer to NCRC.
NCRC’s issues are unfortunately nothing new. We reached the unfortunate conclusion back in 2021 that NCRC’s issues would never be solved, and that while we believe that Adoptees should definitely still attempt to request documents and a birth family search through NCRC via the KAS website, that for a great many Korean Adoptees, birth family search boils down to taking ALL possible DNA tests. For decades, the Korean Government has deliberately and effectively run down the clock on Adoptees by making birth family search a deeply frustrating and dispiriting obstacle course, which frankly, understandably causes many Adoptees to give up. Unfortunately, there are always Adoptees newly ‘coming out of the fog’ who have to go through the long process it takes to finally realize that DNA testing may be their only hope in terms of birth family search. This is not to say that a search through NCRC can never be successful. It’s just to say that a birth family search for many Adoptees has a very limited time frame due to the age of birth parents, and that newly ‘out of the fog’ Adoptees don’t have much time to figure this all out before it is too late.
Many people don’t realize it, but a core mission of Paperslip is to encourage Korean Adoptees to take ALL possible DNA tests. We’ve been down the long, often painful road of birth family search ourselves — and we’ve come to terms with a difficult truth: the Korean Government is, in many ways, just waiting for our time to run out.
The reality is, the system moves too slowly. The time it will take for the Korean Government to meaningfully support Adoptees in birth family search is far longer than the time many of us have to find our living relatives. And while the Korean Government has long understood this, many Adoptees—especially those new to search—do not.
If you have even the slightest interest in searching for your birth family, please take all possible DNA tests. Time is not on our side — but DNA might be.
Yes—continue to advocate for meaningful change at NCRC. But also be mindful of time, and pursue all available paths in your birth family search: submit requests through NCRC via the KAS website, take ALL possible DNA tests, and, if possible, conduct “boots on the ground” search efforts in Korea.
Birth family search is a journey with no guaranteed outcomes—there’s no certainty of finding living relatives. In the end, the one connection you can count on is the one you make with yourself. For many, that alone makes opening Pandora’s box worthwhile.
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Byline: Hyun-A Heo, Content Team Leader/Reporter
Published: September 24, 2025, 06:02 | Updated: September 24, 2025, 10:52
National Assembly to Confirm Audit Schedule and Witness List on September 24
Starting October 13 and running through October 31, a 19-day audit of 44 organizations under the jurisdiction of the National Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee will be conducted as part of the annual 국정감사 (National Assembly audit of government agencies).
On September 24, the Health and Welfare Committee will hold a plenary meeting to finalize the 2025 audit schedule, data submission requests, and the list of witnesses and reference persons.
This year, the audit will target 40 agencies under the direct oversight of the Health and Welfare Committee, including the Ministry of Health and Welfare, as well as four additional agencies such as the Korean National Tuberculosis Association, which require full Assembly approval.
After organizing audit materials on October 13, the audits will officially begin with the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) on October 14–15.
On October 17, the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) and the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) will be audited. Then, on October 21, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and the National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation will undergo audits.
In addition, six affiliated agencies will also be reviewed:
Korea Agency of HACCP Accreditation and Services
Korea Institute of Drug Safety & Risk Management
Food Safety Information Service
Korea Medical Device Safety Information Center
Korea Association Against Drug Abuse
Korea Orphan & Essential Drug Center
On October 22, the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, Korea Health Promotion Institute, National Cancer Center, and the Korean Red Cross will be audited. Also included are:
Korea Health Personnel Licensing Examination Institute
Korea Foundation for International Healthcare
National Medical Center
National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency
Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency
Korea Organ Donation Agency
Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine
Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation
The list also includes:
Korea Public Tissue Bank
Korea Health Information Service
Korea Suicide Prevention Center
Korean National Tuberculosis Association
National Association of Local Public Hospitals
On October 24, the National Pension Service will undergo a solo audit.
On October 28, audits are scheduled for:
Korea Labor Force Development Institute for the Aged
Korea Social Security Information Service
National Institute for Human Resource Development in Health and Welfare
Korea Disabled People's Development Institute
Korea National Council on Social Welfare
National Center for the Rights of the Child
Korea Self-Sufficiency Development Institute
Central Social Service Agency
The audit period concludes with material consolidation on October 30–31.
All audited agencies must submit the following materials to the audit committee at least seven days prior to their scheduled audit:
2025 operational overview
Budget and fund execution status for 2024–2025
Performance reports of major projects
Status of corrections made based on previous audit findings
This year’s audit starts right after the Chuseok holiday in October. Agencies under audit are overwhelmed with requests for data while also trying to anticipate possible questions, making the long holiday effectively meaningless.
An official from one of the Health and Welfare Committee's affiliated agencies commented:
“We’re already inundated with document requests from Assembly members. It’s hard enough compiling the data, but having to craft tailored responses means the long holiday is more burden than break.”
Related Articles
National Audit Begins October 14 with Ministry of Health and KDCA... Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on the 21st
100-Day Regular Session Kicks Off... Party Speeches on the 9th, Interpellation on the 15th
Keywords: National Assembly Audit, Health and Welfare Committee, 국정감사, 보건복지위원회
Hyun-A Heo, Content Team Leader/Reporter
maru@hitnews.co.kr
Records form the foundation of memory. Through the power of recording and remembering, we will build a timeline that leads to meaningful change.