Licenses of 2 senior doctors suspended over walkouts
SEOUL — South Korean authorities have suspended the licenses of two senior doctors for allegedly inciting the weekslong walkouts by thousands of medical interns and residents that have disrupted hospital operations, one of the doctors said on Monday.
The suspensions are the government’s first punitive steps against physicians after doctors-in-training walked off the job last month to protest the government’s plan to sharply increase medical school admissions.
Officials say the recruitment plan is aimed at adding more doctors to prepare for South Korea’s rapidly aging population in a country whose doctor-to-population ratio is one of the lowest in the developed world. But doctors say that schools can’t handle an abrupt, steep increase in students, and that it would ultimately undermine the country’s medical services.
In early March, the government began taking steps to suspend the licenses of striking junior doctors after they refused its orders to return to work by the end of February. Police are separately investigating five senior members of the Korean Medical Association, or KMA, which represents doctors in South Korea, for allegedly inciting and abetting the strikes.
Park Myung-ha, one of the five members, said he received a government letter saying his license would be suspended for three months from April 15. Park, who works for the KMA’s emergency committee, said committee leader Kim Taek-woo was also given a three-month suspension.
The Health Ministry said it wouldn’t confirm any reported administrative steps imposed on individual doctors.
“My fellow doctors and I are really angered and appalled by the government’s measure,” Park told The Associated Press.
Legal steps
Park accused the government of attempting to break up the KMA emergency committee and sending a warning message to striking junior doctors. He said he and others are discussing legal steps to respond to the license suspensions.
Around 12,000 junior doctors have been off the job for a month, but none has received a license suspension. Observers have said it would take a few months to suspend all their licenses and that the government would likely end up suspending only strike leaders.
The striking junior doctors account for less than 10 percent of South Korea’s 140,000 doctors. But in some major hospitals, they represent about 30 percent to 40 percent of the doctors, assisting senior doctors during surgeries and dealing with inpatients during training.
Their strikes have caused hundreds of canceled or postponed surgeries and other treatments, but officials say the country’s handling of emergency and critical patients largely remains stable.
Senior doctors at major university hospitals recently decided to submit resignations next week in support of the junior doctors. Still, most of them will likely continue to report to work. If they walk off the job, that would burden South Korea’s medical services severely.