South Korean officials yesterday issued return-to-work orders for doctors participating in a one-day walkout 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 nation’s number of doctors by up to 10,000 by 2035. Many reject the plan, saying schools would not be able to handle the increased flow and that the quality of the nation’s medical services would suffer.
About 4 percent of the nation’s 36,000 private medical facilities, categorized as clinics, had told authorities they would participate in the one-day strike yesterday, the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare said.
Photo: Reuters
The strike came a day after hundreds of medical school professors at four major hospitals affiliated with Seoul National University (SNU) started an indefinite walkout, raising concerns about disruptions in medical services.
South Korean Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Jun Byung-wang said the one-day strike by clinics and the walkout by SNU-affiliated medical professors had not 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.”
“We cannot allow unlimited freedom to the medical profession,” Jun said. “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 the ministry plans to request that 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 could 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 yesterday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called the months-long strike “regrettable” and warned that his government would sternly respond to “illegal activities that abandon patients.”
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