A court has ruled against restrictions on a for-profit hospital on Jeju Island that prohibited treatment of patients with Korean citizenship.

The Jeju District Court on Tuesday sided with the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the Greenland Jeju Healthcare Town Company, a subsidiary of Chinese real estate developer Greenland Group. The company had requested that the Jeju government revoke the condition barring the Greenland International Medical Center from treating Korean citizens when it permitted a license for the hospital to open in Jeju.

Investing 80 billion won, the company built Korea's very first for-profit hospital at the Jeju Healthcare Town site and applied for a permit in August 2017.

Jeju authorities granted a conditional permit allowing the hospital to offer medical services only to foreign tourists, not Korean nationals.

The company balked at the restriction and filed the suit in early 2019 requesting that it be scrapped.

As the hospital did not open three months after the permit was issued, Jeju, citing medical regulations, canceled the permit altogether which prompted another lawsuit by the hospital's operator demanding the cancellation be invalidated. The company won this case as well with a Supreme Court ruling delivered in January this year.