South Korean doctors walk out, protesting plan to boost their ranks
More than 1,500 medical interns and residents in South Korea walked off their jobs on Tuesday, disrupting a vital service in protest against the government's plan to tackle the doctor shortage by admitting more students to medical school.
Although South Korea prides itself on its affordable healthcare system, the country has one of the fewest doctors per capita in the developed world. According to the government, the rapidly aging population underlines the acute need for more doctors, especially in rural parts of the country and in areas such as emergency medicine.
The protesters, who are doctors in training and crucial to keeping hospitals running, say the shortage of doctors does not affect the entire sector but is limited to certain specialties, such as emergency medicine. They say the government is ignoring the problems that have made working in these areas unattractive: harsh working conditions and low wages for interns and residents.
Surveys have found that trainee doctors regularly work multiple shifts in any given week that last longer than 24 hours, and that many work more than 80 hours per week.
The protesting doctors also say that by increasing the number of doctors, the government risks creating more competition that could lead to overtreatment of patients.
Early this month, President Yoon Suk Yeol's government announced a plan to increase the admission quota for medical schools by 65 percent. Licenses to practice medicine are regulated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The plan was immediately criticized by doctors, who took to the streets with signs reading 'end of healthcare'. Trainee doctors at five of the largest hospitals in Seoul, where most of the country's people live, submitted their resignations on Monday and left their posts at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.
Medical centers were already reporting disruptions to operations Monday afternoon, including Severance Hospital, one of the nation's largest, which said it had cut back on services and canceled half of all scheduled surgical procedures.
“Physicians are not slaves of the country,” Park Dan, the head of the Korea Intern Resident Association, said in a statement Facebook last week. He resigned from Severance Hospital's emergency department on Monday.
Officials have urged doctors to remain at their posts, warning of legal consequences for those who don't follow the rules. On Monday, the Health Ministry revoked the licenses of two members of the Korean Medical Association, who were among the most outspoken critics of the government plan. The association, the country's largest group of doctors, declined to comment.
Laws allow the government to force some doctors back to work if they fear disruption to care. Officials have said they will rely on telemedicine operators and even military doctors until the case is resolved.
There is broad public support in South Korea for increasing the medical education quota, which has remained essentially unchanged since 2006. The country has about 2.6 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants, compared to an average of 3.7 in the countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Mr. Yoon's plan would increase the number of admissions to medical schools from 3,000 to about 5,000 per year. If the admissions quota is not increased, officials predict, the country will have about 10,000 fewer doctors than it needs by 2035.
This is not the first time in recent years that the government has pushed for more doctors. In 2020, President Moon Jae-in's government proposed increasing the number of medical schools by 4,000 in ten years. The plan was shelved after a backlash from the medical community and a month-long strike by doctors.