Operations canceled as doctors’ strike grows
A total 7,813 trainee doctors had not shown up for work
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Pregnant women had C-sections canceled and cancer treatments were postponed Wednesday as the number of South Korean trainee doctors to walk off the job over proposed reforms swelled, officials and local reports said.
More than 8,800 junior doctors — 71 percent of the trainee workforce — have now quit, said Seoul’s Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo, part of a spiralling protest against government plans to sharply increase medical school admissions.
Park said Wednesday that 7,813 trainee doctors had not shown up for work — an almost five-fold increase from the first day of the action Monday — despite the government ordering many of them to return to their hospitals.
“The basic calling of medical professionals is to protect the health and lives of the people, and any group action that threatens this cannot be justified,” Park said.
The doctors’ walkout was a violation of South Korean law, as medical workers cannot refuse socalled return to work orders “without justifiable grounds,” he said.
Seoul says the reforms are essential, citing the country’s low doctor numbers and rapidly aging population, but doctors claim the changes will hurt service provision and education quality.
Critics say doctors are mainly concerned the reform could erode their salaries and social prestige, and the plan enjoys broad public support among South Koreans, especially those in remote areas where quality service is often inaccessible.
South Korea’s general hospitals rely heavily on trainees for emergency operations and surgeries, and local reports said cancer patients and expectant mothers needing C-sections had seen procedures canceled or delayed, with scores of cases causing “damage,” Park said.
Nurses, who have been left in charge during the strike, urged doctors to return to work, even as they sympathized with their fight against the reform.