Striking doctors in S. Korea face license suspensions

SEOUL — Thousands of striking junior doctors in South Korea faced proceedings to suspend their medical licenses on Tuesday, as authorities are pushing for police investigations targeting leaders of the walkouts that have disrupted hospital operations.

Nearly 9,000 of South Korea’s 13,000 medical interns and residents have been refusing to work for the past two weeks to protest a government plan to enroll thousands more students in the country’s medical schools in coming years. The government ordered them to return to work by Feb 29, citing a threat to public health. But most have defied threats of license suspensions and prosecutions.

“For those who lead the walkouts, we are thinking we’ll file complaints with police,” Vice-Health Minister Park Min-soo said. “But I tell you that we haven’t determined exactly when we would do so and against whom.”

On Monday, the Health Ministry sent officials to hospitals to confirm the absences of the striking doctors to begin administrative steps to suspend their licenses.

So far, the government has confirmed the absences of more than 7,000 strikers. And on Tuesday, officials were to continue on-site inspections of hospitals and begin sending notices to some strikers about license suspension proceedings, Park said.

The striking doctors’ licenses would be suspended for at least three months, Park said, and doctors are to be given opportunities to respond before suspensions take effect.

‘Defenseless’ patients

“The trainee doctors have left their patients defenseless. They’ve even left emergency rooms and intensive care units,” he said.

“We can’t tolerate these irresponsible acts. They have betrayed their professional and ethical responsibilities and neglected their legal duties.”

Observers said the government will likely end up punishing only strike leaders, not all of the thousands of striking doctors. They said it would take a few months to complete the administrative steps to suspend the licenses of all 9,000 striking doctors.

At the heart of the dispute is a government plan to raise the country’s medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 starting next year, from the current 3,058. Officials said South Korea must add more doctors to deal with a fast-aging population. However, many doctors said universities are not ready to deal with that abrupt increase in the number of students and that the country’s overall medical service would be eventually hurt.

Many senior doctors support junior doctors, but have not joined their walkouts.