LG Welfare Foundation presents social contribution awards

Neurosurgery Professor Go Young-cho of Konkuk University, who treated over 15,000 patients for free in the past 48 years, and No Pan-soon, who donated all her wealth to her neighbors, received social contribution awards from the LG Welfare Foundation.

The LG Welfare Foundation announced on Thursday that it awarded Professor Go and Ms. No in recognition of their lifetime of giving back.

Professor Go first began to offer free treatment 48 years ago to those in medically underserved areas in the outskirts of Seoul after he joined a Catholic student club in 1973 when he was attending a medical school. Since 1977, he has been visiting free clinics, such as Jeonjinsang Clinic, Joseph Clinic, and Rafael Clinic, in Seoul twice a week to provide free medical service. He treated over 15,000 patients.

In 2005, when he hadn’t heard for a while from his patient whom he was treating regularly for hydrocephaly, he visited the patient’s house where he found the patient unconscious. The professor transferred the patient immediately to the Konkuk University Medical Center where he worked and operated on the patient himself to save the patient’s life.

Ms. No who resides in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province donated 430 million won that she saved during her lifetime by working as a maid and in restaurants and running a bathhouse to her neighbors in need – 330 million won to the development support foundation of Kunsan National University for poor college students in 2019 and 2020 and 100 million won to the city government of Gunsan and North Jeolla Province Community Chest of Korea in April this year. She lives frugally in a studio apartment paying monthly rent and eats free lunchboxes provided by senior citizen centers. “I only need a single room to lay my body. I am going to look for ways to help my neighbors for the rest of my life,” she said in her award acceptance speech.


will@donga.com