Korea Postpartum Center Capacity, Staffing & Shift Budget Calculator
Check Korean 2026 maternal-room and nursery area caps, legal RN/NA staffing, substitution limits, RN shift gaps and added monthly hiring costs using actual loaded employment costs.
Check room capacity and staffing costs before opening a Korean postpartum center
This Korea-specific 2026 calculator helps operators compare premises, expansion plans and hiring needs before committing to a lease.
It connects maternal rooms, nursery personal area, legal nursing headcounts and a repeating daily deployment plan.
It focuses on operator staffing and monthly hiring cost; family accommodation prices and support payments belong to a separate calculator.
A floor plan with enough total space can still contain undersized rooms.
A legal nursing headcount can still leave a night shift without an RN.
Reviewing these conditions together helps identify possible fit-out changes and additional payroll before contracts are fixed.
Prepare the evidence
- Measured plans separating individual rooms and nursery common spaces
- Prior-year admission records or an authority-confirmed new-center basis
- Staff qualifications, current headcounts and weekly deployable hours
- Shift-by-shift coverage and actual loaded monthly employment costs
Korean rules, effective dates and planning assumptions
The legal basis is Article 15 of the Maternal and Child Health Act and Article 14 / Annex 3 of its Enforcement Rule.
The act version is effective 2026-09-10; the rule version is effective 2026-03-04.
Current status and annex text were verified through the National Law Information OPEN API on 2026-11-05.
The English experience uses the same calculation functions and verified evidence as the Korean page.
Statutory inputs
Single maternal rooms: 6.3 m²; shared rooms: 4.3 m² per mother; nursery personal area: 1.7 m² per infant.
Nursing ratios are one RN per 7 average infants and one NA per 2.5, with separate rounding, a 30% RN substitution limit and continuous RN presence on every shift.
The dietitian threshold is 30 maternal diners per meal.
Operator assumptions
Deployable weekly hours, NA deployment by slot, actual unit employment costs and other payroll are user assumptions.
Prefilled values and the example are fictional; they are not market wages or legally recommended working hours.
Measure maternal rooms separately and exclude nursery common area
Maternal room area caps
A single room has a provisional cap of one mother at 6.3 m² or more, otherwise zero.
A shared room assumes at least two mothers: below 8.6 m² its shared-room cap is zero; otherwise use floor(room area ÷ 4.3 m²).
Multiply each room’s excess people and area shortfall by the number of identical rooms, then sum.
Do not transfer spare area between separate rooms.
Nursery area cap
Private area = total nursery area − common area.
The provisional infant cap is floor(private area ÷ 1.7 m²), and the shortfall compares private area with planned infants × 1.7 m².
Sinks, bathing, feeding preparation and other non-personal spaces must be excluded.
Common area greater than total area is rejected as invalid.
The annex refers to the measurement method in Article 119 of the Building Act Enforcement Decree.
Lease gross area and an informal floor measurement do not automatically establish accepted area; ask the designer and authority.
Maternal and infant capacities are separate outputs, without an automatic one-to-one pairing that could obscure twins or other admission arrangements.
Legal nursing headcounts and substitutions in either direction
Let A be the prior-year daily average number of admitted infants.
Baseline RNs = ceil(A ÷ 7); baseline NAs = ceil(A ÷ 2.5).
Round each role upward separately.
Planned capacity and the daily average are different fields; a new center must obtain an applicable authority-confirmed basis.
After the selected substitution
- RN-to-NA replacements R: at most floor(baseline RN × 0.3)
- NA-to-RN replacements N: at most the baseline NA count
- Final legal RN = baseline RN − R + N
- Final legal NA = baseline NA + R − N
Choose one substitution direction at a time to avoid circular double counting.
The combined legal headcount remains unchanged.
Three baseline RNs produce a 0.9-person limit and therefore zero whole-person replacements; four permit one in this model.
Confirm this conservative integer treatment with the authority.
At A = 21 the baseline is three RNs; at A = 21.01 it becomes four, changing the RN-to-NA replacement cap from zero to one.
At A = 28, replacing one RN yields three RNs and thirteen NAs.
At A = 14, replacing all six baseline NAs with RNs yields eight RNs and zero NAs.
An NA deployment still entered in the daily slots creates a separate hour-coverage need, so revise the shift plan alongside the substitution choice.
Continuous RN presence and weekly hour capacity are separate checks
Annex 3 requires at least one RN continuously present on every shift.
A zero-RN night slot is a gap even when total RN employment is high.
RNs and NAs cannot concurrently perform work outside postpartum care, and the annex restricts who may perform infant health-management work.
Repeating daily deployment model
Ordered slots must total 24 hours, without overlap or uncovered intervals.
Weekly RN demand = Σ(slot hours × max(1, scheduled RN)) × 7.
Weekly NA demand = Σ(slot hours × scheduled NA) × 7.
Hour-coverage headcount is ceil(weekly demand ÷ effective weekly hours per employee).
Each role’s target is max(final legal headcount, hour-coverage headcount).
Effective hours mean deployable coverage after breaks, leave, training and management duties, rather than paid hours.
The 168-hour upper input bound is a validation range, not a legal allowance.
This model repeats the same deployment seven days a week and does not generate individual schedules.
Sufficient aggregate hours do not guarantee a feasible roster: review night availability, rest days, continuous work and break relief separately.
Health manager, working owner and meal staffing
One health manager
One medical professional must serve as health manager; a counted RN may also serve.
In RN dual-service mode, no separate manager payroll is added, but the model checks both an actual RN and current designation.
A separate medical professional is counted and costed only in the separate row.
A qualified operator actually performing an applicable role may be included once in that role.
Meals for mothers
Meal provision requires at least one cook.
Providing a meal to 30 or more mothers adds one dietitian; 29 and 30 therefore produce different results.
No automatic exemption is inferred from outsourced catering.
Confirm the authority’s treatment of the actual arrangement, and count maternal diners rather than visitors’ meals.
Enter cleaners and other employment costs in the other-payroll field as applicable.
The cook and dietitian rows give legal minimum headcounts, not a holiday-relief staffing calculation.
Budget any additional relief separately and confirm restrictions on combining health-management work with other duties.
Step-by-step use and withheld results
- Enter maternal room types, accepted areas, counts and planned mothers per room; split nursery total and common area.
- Enter prior-year admission evidence or the authority-confirmed new-center basis.
Leave the confirmation unchecked if the evidence is unavailable. - Select substitutions, current RN and NA headcounts, and effective weekly hours.
Adjust the ordered shift slots to cover 24 hours. - Confirm the manager arrangement and maximum maternal diners per meal.
Enter actual monthly unit costs including wages, allowances, employer charges and retirement accruals. - Review room excesses, RN gaps, hires and HOLD reasons.
Save the worksheet and check it against source documents before fixing contract terms.
Unknown is not zero.
An unconfirmed legal basis leaves legal nursing headcounts and targets at N/A / HOLD while area and aggregate-hour screens remain available.
Unconfirmed costs allow only an entered current subtotal; target and added budgets are withheld.
Editing an input clears the previous result, so calculate again after changes.
Fictional example: 14-person area caps and KRW 18,200,000 added monthly cost
Area and legal baseline
Ten single rooms of 6.3 m² and two shared rooms of 8.6 m², each planned for two mothers, yield a maternal area cap of fourteen.
A 30 m² nursery less 6.2 m² common space leaves 23.8 m² private area, also giving fourteen infants.
With A = 14 and no substitutions, the legal baseline is two RNs and six NAs.
Hours and hiring targets
Three eight-hour shifts with one RN and two NAs each require 168 RN-hours and 336 NA-hours per week.
At an assumed 35 effective weekly hours per employee, hour coverage requires five RNs and ten NAs.
Current employment of three RNs and six NAs therefore leaves two RN hires and four NA hires.
Budget retaining current staff
Assume KRW 3,500,000 per RN, KRW 2,800,000 per NA and one current cook at KRW 2,500,000 per month, with an RN also serving as manager.
The current subtotal is KRW 29,800,000; the retained target budget is KRW 48,000,000; the added monthly budget is KRW 18,200,000.
These are fictional loaded costs, not market quotations.
Add cook holiday relief and other actual costs separately where needed.
Interpret results before changing lease and hiring terms
A large overall maternal area cap does not remove an individual undersized room’s excess.
Revise that room’s layout, type or planned occupancy.
A nursery area shortfall does not instruct you to remove required common facilities; the designer must review personal space and mandatory equipment together.
New hires are positive role-by-role differences between targets and current staff.
Surplus RN payroll is not subtracted from NA recruitment costs, and existing employees are retained in the target budget.
To use extra RNs in place of NAs, explicitly change the substitution and deployment plan and recalculate.
A completed numerical screen means preparation for authority review, not accepted reporting or safety approval.
Three reviews for the worksheet
- Ask the designer about accepted areas, observation rooms, evacuation and hygiene facilities.
- Ask the health authority about new-center bases, substitution integers, manager designation and working-owner inclusion.
- Ask labor advisers about individual rosters, breaks, leave, allowances and actual loaded costs.
Practical scenarios and limits
Compare premises before leasing
Equal leased gross areas can produce different capacities because room layouts and common spaces differ.
Run each measured plan and compare room shortfalls and recruitment costs.
Discuss required fit-out work before settling lease conditions.
Review expansion and staffing
Keep the verified prior-year average separate from proposed deployment.
A lower historical average does not establish that staffing is adequate for increased current admissions.
Review additional service and safety staffing separately.
The calculator does not guarantee medical safety, demand, profitability, reporting acceptance or a workable individual roster.
Liability insurance, floor and evacuation requirements, observation facilities, education, health checks and infection controls need separate review.
A statutory minimum is not automatically a safe service staffing level.
Frequently asked questions
Can I pool all maternal room areas before calculating capacity?
No.
Check each room separately.
Spare area in a large single room cannot repair a shortfall in another room.
Group rooms only if type and area match.
The sum of room-level excess counts can exceed the simple difference between total planned mothers and aggregate capacity.
Do nursery sinks and bathing spaces count toward 1.7 m² per infant?
Common space, including sinks, bathing and feeding-preparation areas, is excluded.
Subtract accepted common area from total nursery area before dividing by 1.7 m².
Separately verify accepted measurements and observation-room requirements against the plan.
Can a new center use planned infant capacity as its daily average?
Planned capacity is not automatically a legal staffing basis.
Annex 3 refers to the prior-year daily average number of admitted infants.
Obtain the authority’s applicable new-center basis and evidence first.
Until then, leave the confirmation unchecked; legal nursing headcounts and additional hiring budgets remain N/A / HOLD.
Can one of three baseline RNs be replaced by an NA?
The model applies the 30% limit to whole people: 3 × 30% = 0.9, so the replacement limit is zero.
Four baseline RNs allow one replacement in this calculation.
This is a conservative mathematical interpretation; confirm the authority’s accepted integer treatment.
Does meeting the legal RN headcount also cover the night shift?
Every shift requires at least one RN continuously present.
A zero-RN night slot remains a gap even if the center employs many RNs overall.
The hour-demand calculation corrects that slot to one RN when calculating recruitment needs.
Actual individual schedules and break relief still require review.
Can RNs replace NAs, or also act as health manager?
Annex 3 permits NAs to be replaced by RNs.
Enter no more than the baseline NA count in the NA-to-RN field.
One medical professional must serve as health manager; a counted RN may also serve.
Count and cost that person once, and exclude management duties from deployable hours.
Does outsourced catering remove cook and dietitian requirements?
This calculator applies no automatic outsourcing exemption.
Under the annex wording, meal provision for mothers requires at least one cook, and serving 30 or more mothers per meal adds one dietitian.
Enter the relevant maternal diner count, not all meals including visitors.
Confirm any special arrangement with the authority.
Can I sign contracts once the target and budget are shown?
The target is the larger legal or aggregate-hour headcount.
It does not validate individual night availability, break relief, leave, infection control, cook holiday cover or employment-law compliance.
Review the worksheet alongside qualifications, plans, actual rosters and loaded-cost quotations before fixing lease and hiring terms.
Official sources and future rechecks
Verified 2026-11-05: Act MST286727, effective 2026-09-10; Enforcement Rule MST283857, effective 2026-03-04; Annex identifier 17998081.
The current text and annex were retrieved directly from the National Law Information OPEN API.
After amendments, recheck room areas, ratios, separate upward rounding, the 30% replacement scope, shift requirements and meal thresholds together.
- Maternal and Child Health Act, Article 15
- Enforcement Rule, Article 14
- Current Annex 3: staffing and facilities
Flooring the 30% limit is a conservative mathematical interpretation of whole-person substitution.
The calculator does not replace confirmation of a new-center basis, accepted area measurement, qualifications, dual service, actual work, outsourced meals or the individual roster.
Compare the worksheet with your plans and actual roster
Resolve room shortfalls and RN gaps first, then take the saved worksheet to the health authority and design/labor advisers.
Once the hiring budget is evidenced, combine it with rent and opening costs in a broader funding plan.
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