Navigating Ableism: Healthcare Experiences of Disabled People In Korea

Background

Although timely access to healthcare is a fundamental right of citizenship, disabled people face multidimensional barriers that non-disabled people do not. In Korea, 42.4% of disabled people report poor health status and 68.5% report chronic disease (KODDI, 2025). Korea operates a formal disability registration system linking disabled people to welfare services, and given the relatively recent history of its deinstitutionalization movement from the late 1980s, the community-based services and supports available may differ meaningfully from those examined elsewhere (Hwang et al., 2024). Existing research has been predominantly quantitative, failing to capture the full process through which disabled people seek, navigate, and respond to healthcare systems. Drawing from Critical Disability Studies and Crip theory frameworks, this study examines not only the barriers disabled people face within Korean healthcare systems shaped by ableist bodily norms, but also how they resist institutional ableism and mobilize resources through individual and collective action.

Methods

Following IRB approval, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 registered disabled adults in Korea between July and August 2024. Participants were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling via social media. Eligibility required legal adult status, official disability registration in Korea, and prior experience with Korean healthcare services. Interviews ranged from 50 to 90 minutes and were conducted in accessible formats, including sign language interpretation where needed. All interviews were conducted in Korean and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's (2006) thematic analysis.

Findings

Participants (11 men, 9 women, 1 non-binary; mean age 33.7) included individuals with hearing impairments (n=10), cerebral palsy (n=7), physical disabilities (n=2), internal organ disability (n=1), and two with multiple disabilities. Four themes emerged, collectively revealing how compulsory able-bodiedness is institutionalized within Korean healthcare: 1) Challenges when accessing healthcare (multi-level physical accessibility challenges, trauma from systemic healthcare exclusion), 2) Quality of care issues during medical encounters (low disability awareness among healthcare providers, communication difficulties), 3) Unmet service needs when accessing/utilizing healthcare (communication support and service design that understands disability characteristics), and 4) Perceived health disparities intersecting with disabled identities (systemic inaccessibility creating psychological barriers with cascading health effects, health disparities arising from inability to monitor health status, compulsory able-bodiedness as a compounding norm intersecting with marginalized identities, resistance and resourcefulness through individual and collective action).

Conclusion and Implications

These findings reveal that ableism operates at multiple levels within Korean healthcare — from structural inaccessibility to provider attitudes — producing repeated experiences of exclusion and psychological withdrawal that cumulatively widen health disparities. Critically, disabled people are not passive recipients of these conditions; they actively resist institutional ableism and mobilize resources through both individual and collective action. Dismantling these barriers requires both structural reforms, including disability-inclusive healthcare design and enforcement of existing disability rights legislation, and provider-level interventions such as mandatory disability awareness training that centers disabled people's lived experiences rather than medical deficit frameworks. Together, these efforts can meaningfully improve health outcomes for disabled communities in Korea.