On Wednesday, a growing number of South Korean trainee doctors walked off the work over proposed reforms, delaying cancer treatments and canceling C-sections for pregnant women, according to officials and local reports.
According to Seoul’s Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo, approximately 8,800 junior doctors, or 71% of the trainee workforce, have resigned as a result of escalating protests against government plans to drastically raise medical school admissions.
Doctors argue the changes will negatively impact service delivery and education quality, while Seoul argues the reforms are necessary due to the nation’s low doctor-to-population ratio and rapidly aging population.
Critics say doctors are mainly concerned the reform could erode their salaries and social prestige, and the plan enjoys broad public support among South Koreans, many of whom are fed up with long wait times for many medical services.
Park said Wednesday that 7,813 trainee doctors had not shown up for work an almost five-fold increase from the first day of the action Monday despite the government ordering many of them to return to their hospitals.
“The basic calling of medical professionals is to protect the health and lives of the people, and any group action that threatens this cannot be justified,” Park said.
The doctors’ walkout was a violation of South Korean law, as medical workers cannot refuse so-called return to work orders “without justifiable grounds”, he said.
South Korea’s general hospitals rely heavily on trainees for emergency operations and surgeries, and local reports said cancer patients and expectant mothers needing C-sections had seen procedures cancelled or delayed, with scores of cases causing “damage”, Park said.
“My surgery was canceled on the day of admission due to the doctors’ strike, and I’m still dumbfounded,” wrote @August_holiday on social media platform X.
Another user on South Korea’s Naver web portal said her mother’s long-awaited cerebral aneurysm surgery had been abruptly delayed.
“I’m furious that (the doctors) can act so irresponsibly,” user @488653 wrote.
Junior doctors claim the new medical education reforms are the final straw for many workers in a profession already struggling with tough working conditions, such as in emergency rooms.
“Despite working more than 80 hours a week and receiving compensation at minimum wage level, trainee doctors have been neglected by the government until now,” the Korea Interns and Residents Association said in a statement.
They argued that the current healthcare system’s over reliance on resident physicians was neither fair nor reasonable.
While sympathizing with doctors’ resistance to the reform, nurses—who have been left in charge during the strike—asked them to report back to work.
“Do not ignore your conscience toward the patients being left behind,” the Korean Young Nurses Association wrote in a social media post.
