Lee Jae-yong, the eldest son of Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee and vice chairman of Samsung Electronics as well as president of the Samsung Life Public Welfare Foundation, made a public appearance on June 23 to apologize for mishandling of Middle East respiratory patients in Samsung Seoul Hospital in southern Seoul.
This is the first time for Lee to speak in public after he became de facto leader of Samsung Group.
In a news conference held on the 23rd at the group's headquarters building in Seoul's Gangnam, Lee said, "Our Samsung Hospital caused too much concern to the public and I hereby deeply apologize for the inconvenience and suffering of those who were affected."
"I am sorry for the deceased from MERS and the patients under treatment and their families. I am sorry for those quarantined unexpectedly. I know albeit slightly how painful it is to have a patient in a family as my father has been in the hospital bed for more than a year," he added. "Samsung Hospital will be fully responsible for the patients until their full recovery. Until now we haven't lived up to expectations of the public and I feel so shameful for what has happened," he further said.
He promised that his group will start reorganizing the hospital as soon as the current MERS incident dies down. "I will make sure the hospital to be equipped with more emergency rooms and negative-pressure isolation rooms for patients in critical conditions. We will investigate thoroughly what went wrong and try our best to come up with measures to keep this unfortunate event from happening again," he stressed.
