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Gov't deploys military doctors to address medical service disruptions
Patients, visitors and a doctor walk through a hallway of a major hospital in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
By Jun Ji-hye
Medical professors move to support trainee doctors on strike
The government on Monday began deploying 158 military and public health doctors to hospitals affected by a nationwide walkout staged by thousands of trainee doctors, in a bid to make up for the shortage of medical staff and minimize disruptions to medical services.
The latest measure came about three weeks after nearly 12,000 interns and resident doctors at major hospitals across the country left their worksites in protest of the government’s policy to increase the number of medical students next year, causing cancellations and delays in surgeries and other medical procedures as well as increased workloads for other medical professionals who have continued their duties.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said 20 military doctors and 138 public health doctors began working at 20 affected hospitals to assist in surgery for patients in emergency or critical condition.
Military doctors are commissioned officers who have licenses to work as physicians or dentists, while public health doctors are conscripts for the supplementary service — a category of mandatory military service in Korea — that requires them to work in underserved areas for three years.
The country has about 2,400 military doctors and 1,400 public health doctors.
The health ministry decided to deploy these doctors to the affected hospitals for the next four weeks, but is planning for an additional deployment in case the collective action of the trainee doctors continues.
“We will consider concerns over a possible medical service vacuum in underserved areas to be caused by the additional deployment of public health doctors before making a relevant decision,” Jeon Byung-wang, in charge of health care policy at the ministry, said during a media briefing.
Jeon Byung-wang in charge of health care policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare speaks during a media briefing at the Government Complex Sejong, Monday. Yonhap
According to the ministry, 11,994 trainee doctors, or about 92.9 percent of the total, have walked out of hospitals as of Friday, despite the government’s threat to suspend their licenses as a punitive measure for what the government described as their illegal collective action.
The ministry has already given 4,944 of them prior notice about their violation of the Medical Service Act to offer them an opportunity to state their opinions before their licenses are suspended.
Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong stressed that the government will take lenient measures if the trainee doctors return to work before these administrative procedures to suspend their licenses are completed.
“We encourage trainee doctors to promptly come back as we plan to proactively extend leniency to those who return to work before the conclusion of administrative procedures,” Cho said in a KBS radio interview.
But tensions between the government and the medical community are expected to grow further, as professors at medical schools are moving to support the junior doctors in response to the government’s move to suspend their licenses.
Medical students’ applications for a leave of absence en masse in protest against the government have also served as a catalyst for medical professors to raise their voices.
The emergency response committee at Seoul National University's medical school said later on Monday that all professors would tender their resignations the following Monday if the government failed to propose what they called "rational measures" to address the ongoing situation.
The Medical Professors Association of Korea (MPAK), for its part, will hold a meeting on Thursday to discuss their future plans, including a possible collective action.
“Medical professors hold the responsibilities of treating patients and teaching students,” said Kim Chang-soo, who heads the MPAK. “We are taking the ongoing situation very seriously, as the existence of professors is meaningless if there are no students.”
He noted there have been growing calls for collective action, but nothing has been decided yet.