South Korean doctors stage rally to protest medical school quota boost
South Korea orders doctors who joined protracted strike over medical school plan to return to work
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 18, 2024
SEOUL--South Korean officials issued return-to-work orders for doctors participating in a one-day walkout Tuesday as part of a protracted strike against government plans to boost medical school admissions, starting next year.
Since February, more than 12,000 trainee doctors have remained on strike amid a deepening standoff with government officials, who want to grow the country’s number of doctors by up to 10,000 by 2035. Many reject the plan, saying schools won’t be able to handle the increased flow and that the quality of the country’s medical services would suffer.
About 4% of the country’s 36,000 private medical facilities, categorized as clinics, have told authorities they would participate in a one-day strike on Tuesday, according to South Korea’s Health and Welfare Ministry.
The strike came a day after hundreds of medical school professors at four major hospitals affiliated with Seoul National University entered an indefinite walkout, raising concerns about disruptions in medical services.
South Korean Deputy Health Minister Jun Byung-wang said the one-day strike by clinics and the walkout by SNU-affiliated medical professors haven’t immediately caused significant problems in medical services.
He accused the protracted strike of threatening to destroy a “trusting relationship between doctors and patients our society has built for long.”
“We cannot allow unlimited freedom to the medical profession,” Jun said on Tuesday. “Since they benefit from a medical licensing system that limits the supply (of doctors) and ensures their monopoly of the profession, doctors must uphold their end of professional and ethical responsibilities and legal obligations under the medical law.”
Under South Korean law, doctors defying return-to-work orders can face suspensions of their licenses or other punishment.
Jun said they planned to request hospitals to pursue damage suits against the striking medical professors if their walkouts prolong and disrupt medical services. He said hospitals that fail to sufficiently respond to the walkouts may face disadvantages in health insurance compensation and that the government plans to push legal action against any hospital that cancels reserved treatments with patients without notifying them in advance.
In a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol called the monthslong strike “regrettable” and warned that his government will sternly respond to “illegal activities that abandon patients.”
The striking doctors suffered a significant legal setback last month when the Seoul High Court rejected their request to block the government plan, which would raise the yearly medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 from the current cap of 3,058.
South Korea’s doctor-to-patient ratio is among the lowest in the developed world.
Government officials say the country significantly needs more doctors to cope with the fast-aging population and have downplayed doctors’ concerns about a possible decline in future incomes.
The striking doctors are a fraction of all doctors in South Korea, estimated to number between 115,000 and 140,000. Still, the walkouts have resulted in cancellations of numerous surgeries and other treatments at some large hospitals, which are more dependent on junior doctors and trainees.
Government officials earlier threatened to suspend the licenses of the striking doctors but later halted those administrative steps to facilitate dialogue.
Patients left stranded as South Korea clinics shut down amid doctors’ strike
UPDATED
JUN 19, 2024,
SEOUL - Choi Jung-hwa, a woman in her 30s, discovered a notice of service suspension on June 18 at the internal medicine clinic she regularly visited in Nowon-gu, northern Seoul, for heartburn treatment.
Although she was aware of the ongoing months-long confrontation between the government and doctors over expanding medical school quotas, she had not anticipated it would disrupt her access to medical care.
“I didn’t expect that even this local clinic where I have been treated would be closed,” she said while reading the notice that the clinic would be closed for the afternoon of June 18.
“I heard about the doctors’ strike in the media, but I didn’t think it was relevant to me,” she said, adding that she came to the clinic after checking online that it was operating.
On the day the nation’s largest doctors’ group went on strike, the health ministry said only 4.02 per cent of the nation’s 36,371 community hospitals, excluding dental and traditional Korean medicine clinics, reported to authorities that they would close their clinics.
However, the actual number of striking doctors would be likely higher, as some may reduce business hours or simply give no notice, according to officials. The clinic in Nowon where Choi visited was not on the list of medical institutions that reported to the government that they would be closed.
As of June 13, the last day the government allowed community doctors to report their plans to take a day off on June 18, no clinics in Nowon-gu had reported.
Out of 40 community hospitals in Nowon-gu visited on June 18 by The Korea Herald, six were either closed for the entire day or closed in the afternoon. Of the six clinics, three were paediatric, two were psychiatric and one was internal medicine.
None of the notices mentioned the strike; instead, they cited reasons such as an air conditioning failure and changes in personal schedules for the closure.
Those reasons are to avoid facing legal punishment, according to local reports. Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said on June 18 that the government ordered community doctors who joined the one-day walkout to return to work, warning that they would face legal punishment if they did not comply.
Four months into the prolonged medical standoff, the one-day walkout occurred a day after about 55 per cent of medical professors at four major hospitals affiliated with Seoul National University began an indefinite walkout, further raising concerns about public health services. Patients in other districts also expressed doubts.
A woman surnamed Shin, who lives in Gangseo-gu and raises a 3-year-old boy, said she and the other mothers in her community were very concerned about the situation.
“Children have weak immunity and always deal with infectious diseases such as colds,” she said.
“I am worried that my child will not be able to go to the hospital when he has a high fever due to the prolonged medical disruption. If people can’t get the medical care they deserve, I think society should disqualify doctors who put people’s lives at risk.”
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