SEOUL On Wednesday, an increasing amount of South Korean medical residents 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, about 9,000 junior doctors, or 71% of the trainee workforce, have left as a result of a growing backlash against government plans to drastically raise medical school admissions.
Doctors argue the changes will negatively impact service delivery and educational quality, while Seoul argues the reforms are necessary due to the nation’s low doctor-to-population ratio and rapidly aging population.
Doctors, according to critics, are mostly worried that the reform will lower their pay and social standing. However, the idea is widely supported by South Koreans, particularly those who live in rural areas where access to high-quality healthcare is frequently limited.
Park reported that even though the government had ordered many of the trainee physicians to return to their hospitals, 7,813 had not shown for work, an almost five-fold rise from the beginning of the strike on Monday.
As per Park, “any group action that risks people’s health and lives cannot be justified. The basic responsibility of healthcare providers is to protect these things.”
According to him, medical professionals are not allowed to reject instructions to return to work “without justifiable grounds,” hence the doctors’ walkout was illegal in South Korea.
In order to perform emergency procedures and surgeries, South Korea’s general hospitals mostly rely on trainees. According to local sources, cancer patients and pregnant women in need of C-sections have had procedures postponed or cancelled, with a high number of cases resulting in “damage,” according to Park.
Despite the fact that his brain cancer has spread to his liver and lungs, Hong Jae-ryun, a 50-year-old Daegu resident, said that his chemotherapy has been put on hold with no specific date set because of the current circumstances.
It’s nonsensical. What can helpless patients say amid the battle between the state and physicians? It seems deceitful,” Hong remarked.
“Handling things in this way seems excessive when there’s no one else to rely on but doctors.” Patients suffering from severe illnesses such as cancer and ALS expressed that they were going through “terribly painful days.”
Every minute & every second matters to us. Patients who are extremely sick require immediate care, they stated.
“We sincerely request that trainee physicians who have left the hospital get back into practice as soon as possible.” A group of doctors from Gyeonggi Province held a protest in the heart of Seoul on Wednesday.
They carried placards that said, “Stop populist health care proposals imposed by socialist leftist academics and bureaucrats,” and they donned red headbands that said, “(We) fiercely reject the widening of medical college admissions.” South Korea’s administration at the moment is conservative.
The recent changes to medical education, according to junior doctors, are the last straw in a field where difficult working circumstances are already a problem.
SOURCE: DAWN NEWS
