South Korean Trainee Doctors’ Strike: Latest Updates and Government Response

2024-03-12 06:00:00

Seoul, March 12 (EFE).- The South Korean Minister of Health, Cho Kyoo-hong, has met with representatives of the thousands of trainee doctors who have been on strike for three weeks for the first time since the strike began. as reported today by the second vice minister of the branch, Park Min-soo.

Park told the media that the closed-door meeting took place on Monday and did not want to add more details regarding it.

The second vice minister of Health added that there will be more meetings between both parties.

Around 93% of the country’s 13,000 trainee doctors have joined the strike in protest at conservative Yoon Suk-yeol’s plans to increase the number of places in medical schools by 2,000 a year.

Since resident doctors make up around 40% of the staff at large hospitals in Seoul, the largest in the country, these medical centers are being forced to suspend around half of scheduled surgeries and refer patients from emergencies to other centers.

The Government has begun sending notices to trainee doctors ordering them to return to work and warning them that if they do not comply with the order they face possible suspension of their license for at least three months.

Even so, the warnings have not served to intimidate the group and on Monday, Medicine professors at Seoul National University (SNU) announced that they would present their resignation en bloc next week if the Government fails to offer “reasonable progress” in the negotiations to resolve the strike.

In turn, professors at other centers such as the Catholic University of Korea or Chungang University in Seoul have threatened to take even more forceful measures.

The Executive argues that it is necessary to increase the annual places in medical schools by 2,000 to address the shortage of doctors, especially in rural areas and in areas such as pediatrics, obstetrics or cardiothoracic surgery.

But the doctors denounce that the decision has been unilateral and that the increase should be 350 places so that it does not affect the quality of training and service and that it should be invested in certain areas and reinforce the legal protection of health workers.

The Asian country has not increased places in Medicine in 27 years and is one of the OECD countries with the lowest number of doctors per 1,000 inhabitants (2.46), only behind Mexico, Poland, Colombia and Turkey.

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