About 10,000 medical trainees in South Korea entered the second month of a nationwide strike in late March, forcing hospitals into “emergency mode” and shutting down key departments, including emergency wards, it said on Wednesday and Thursday. This was confirmed by the Korean News Agency.
Medical trainees began a strike in late February to protest a plan announced by conservative President Yun Seok-Yeong to increase student slots in medical schools, which they said was necessary to address long-term shortages in the medical system. South Korea currently has one of the lowest doctor-to-population ratios among developed countries, and is particularly suffering from shortages in critical departments such as pediatrics and emergency room doctors. Yun announced that the government will begin increasing the number of medical students by 2,000 in 2025, gradually increasing the number each year, and ideally finishing with the creation of 10,000 new slots by 2035.
President Yoon said, “Increasing the admission capacity of medical schools by 2,000 students is the minimum necessary measure for the nation to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities.” claimed During February.
South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol speaks in a pre-recorded interview on KBS TV at the presidential palace in Seoul, South Korea, on February 4, 2024 (South Korean presidential palace, Associated Press)
According to a public opinion poll at the time, 75% of South Koreans supported Yoon’s plan. However, in response to this proposal, the Korean Medical Association (KMA) led a call for a strike by dissatisfied resident doctors who said that the increase in the number of domestic doctors would cause unfair competition in the field and hurt their salaries. . Thousands of doctors resigned, and some simply stopped coming to work. Nightmarish anecdotes have begun to be reported of hospitals suddenly canceling non-essential surgeries and ambulances being turned away. In one such incident in late February, a South Korean news network report Death of an anonymous woman in her 80s who experienced a medical emergency and was taken by ambulance. He was reportedly refused an ambulance at seven hospitals, and died at eight hospitals that finally accepted him.
As of Thursday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported. report It is said that more than 90% of South Korea’s 13,000 trainee doctors are still on strike.
“Due to the junior doctors’ strike, understaffed hospitals have had no choice but to cancel or reduce medical appointments and surgeries, which are their main source of income.” Korea JoongAng Ilbo be familiar with on Thursday. The newspaper named five hospitals in the Seoul area that had been forced to limit services, such as reducing reservations and closing wards. Seoul National University Hospital, one of the largest, has reportedly closed 10 of its 60 wards, including the “emergency room short-stay ward” and part of the cancer treatment ward.
Medical professors line up to submit their resignations during a conference at Korea University in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 25, 2024. (Yun Dong-jin/Yonhap News, Associated Press)
The newspaper reported, “Asan Medical Center has a debt of more than 1 billion won (approximately 740 million yen) per day due to a decrease in the number of patients, and has closed nine of its 56 wards.” . “The hospital entered emergency management phase on March 15th.”
Some of the hospitals in question are trying to rein in rapidly mounting debts by asking staff to take unpaid leave because they don’t have enough patients to maintain regular medical staff capacity. .
Yonhap News reported on the same five major hospitals in Seoul, tabulated The total amount of debt facing financial institutions is increasing by more than $740,000 per day.
An anonymous hospital official told Yonhap News Agency, “With intern doctors not coming to work and professors submitting their resignations, we can’t even predict when the situation will end.” “The remaining workers are being stretched thin.”
Members of the Korean Medical Association hold a rally to protest against the government’s medical policies near the presidential palace in Seoul, South Korea, on February 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young Jun)
The government is responding to the crisis by threatening doctors with administrative and criminal penalties. In late February, the federal government filed criminal charges against five KMA executives for allegedly organizing and promoting the strike. Days later, police raided two of the country’s largest KMA offices, in an apparent attempt to discourage walkouts. However, the strikers persistently resisted, and authorities threatened to suspend his medical license and potentially end his career as a doctor.
However, when the deadline for stopping the strike of thousands of trainees arrived, the Yun administration suddenly decided to paused The plan is to revoke their licenses. Officials called the suspension an “interim postponement” and threatened to eventually carry out their threat if doctors continued their strike, but the extension is still an attempt to consult with medical leaders. He said that it was taken into consideration. The South Korean government also announced several new measures to encourage healthcare workers to engage in dialogue with the government. These include limiting junior doctors’ working hours to 80 hours a week and providing incentives for doctors to study underserved obstetrics in a country with one of the lowest birth rates in the world. reportedly includes – and emergency medical care.
KMA elected A new president will be sworn in this week in the aftermath of the attacks in early March. Lim Hyung-taek used his victory speech to threaten an “all-out strike” in which experienced doctors joined the trainees in leaving and demanded that Yoon apologize to all doctors. Mr Lim reportedly demanded an apology before the meeting and then urged Mr Yoon to sit down and negotiate with the doctors himself.
