Thousands of doctors in South Korea are striking
Seoul, South Korea — Thousands of junior doctors in South Korea have been refusing to see patients and attend surgeries since they walked off the job Feb. 20 in response to the government’s push to recruit more medical students.
As of Tuesday, about 8,940 medical interns and residents have left their worksites in protest, disrupting the operations of major hospitals in South Korea and threatening to burden the country’s overall medical service. Now, authorities warned that they have until Thursday to return to work or face license suspensions and prosecutions.
Here’s what’s happening with the strikes:
Why are doctors striking?
The government plans to raise South Korea’s yearly medical school admission caps by 2,000, from the current 3,058.
The enrollment plan is meant to add up to 10,000 doctors by 2035 to cope with the country’s fast-aging population. Officials say South Korea has 2.1 physicians per 1,000 people — far below the average of 3.7 in the developed world.
The striking doctors-in-training say schools can’t handle an abruptly increased number of medical students. They predict doctors in greater competition would perform overtreatment — increasing public medical expenses — and, like current medical students, most of the additionally recruited medical students would also likely try to work in high-paying, popular professions like plastic surgery and dermatology. That means the country’s long-running shortage of physicians in essential yet low-paying areas like pediatrics, obstetrics and emergency departments would remain unchanged.
Some critics say the striking junior doctors simply oppose the government plan because they worry adding more doctors would result in a lower income.
What do the strikes mean for patients?
The walkouts have led hospitals to cancel numerous planned surgeries and other medical treatments. On Friday, an octogenarian undergoing cardiac arrest was reportedly declared dead after seven hospitals turned her away, citing a lack of medical staff or other reasons likely related to the walkouts.
In some major hospitals, junior doctors account for about 30%-40% of the total doctors, playing the role of supporting senior doctors during surgeries and dealing with inpatients. The strikers are among the country’s 13,000 medical residents and interns, and they work and train at about 100 hospitals in South Korea.
In the wake of the walkouts, the government has extended the working hours for public medical institutions, opened emergency rooms at military hospitals to the public, and given nurses legal protection to conduct some medical procedures typically done by doctors.
What’s next?
On Monday, Park, the vice health minister, said the government won’t seek any disciplinary steps against the striking doctors if they report back to work by Thursday. But, he warned, anyone who missed the deadline would be punished with a minimum three-month suspension of their medical licenses and face further legal steps, such as investigations and indictments by prosecutors.