Doctors take part in a rally to protest against government plans to increase medical school admissions in Seoul, South Korea, March 3, 2024. -REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
Thousands of striking junior doctors in South Korea faced proceedings to suspend their medical licences, while authorities pushed for police investigations into leaders of the walkouts that have disrupted hospital operations.
Nearly 9,000 of South Korea’s 13,000 medical interns and residents have been refusing to work for the past two weeks to protest a government plan to enrol thousands more students in the country’s medical schools in coming years.
The government ordered them to return to work by Feb 29, citing a threat to public health, but most have defied the threats of license suspensions and prosecutions.
Officials say South Korea must add more doctors to deal with a fast-ageing population and plan to raise yearly medical school enrolment by 2,000 from the current 3,058, starting next year.
But many doctors say universities aren’t ready to deal with that abrupt increase in the number of students and that the country’s overall medical service would eventually be hurt.
On Monday, the Health Ministry sent officials to hospitals to confirm the absence of the striking doctors, in order to begin administrative steps to suspend their licences.
So far, the government has formally confirmed the absence of more than 7,000 strikers.
On Tuesday, officials continued on-site inspections of hospitals and began sending notices to some strikers about licence suspension proceedings, according to the Health Ministry.
Park said licences would be suspended for at least three months.
Doctors are to be given opportunities to respond before suspensions take effect.
“The trainee doctors have left their patients defenceless. They’ve even left emergency rooms and intensive care units,” Park said.
“We can’t tolerate these irresponsible acts. They have betrayed their professional and ethical responsibilities and neglected their legal duties.”
“For those who lead the walkouts, we are thinking we’ll file complaints with police,” Health Vice-Minister Park Min-soo told a briefing.
“But I tell you that we haven’t determined exactly when we would do so and against whom.”
Under South Korea’s medical law, doctors who defy orders to resume work can be punished with three years in prison or a 30 million-won (RM106,240) fine, as well as a up to one year’s suspension of their medical licences.
Those who receive prison sentences can lose their licences.
Observers say the government will likely end up punishing only strike leaders, not all of the thousands of striking doctors.
They say it would take a few months to complete the administrative steps to suspend the licences of all the 9,000 striking doctors.
One of the striking junior doctors said on Tuesday that he and others have no intentions of returning to work.
“We had only worked to save patients but the government has made us criminals in a moment. Trainee doctors including me were hurt a lot,” said the doctor, who wished to be only identified by his family name, Jeong. — AP
