Live from Severance Hospital on trainee doctors massive walkout

'빅 5' 전공의 병원 떠난다 '의료대란' 우려속 집단 사직

Starting off with the biggest collective action doctors in the country are showing in years.
After the Yoon administration announced its plan to expand the medical school admission quota from next year, doctors' groups have been submitting letters of resignation in protest.
Trainee doctors at major hospitals have opted to stop working from this morning, raising concerns of a health catastrophe.
Our correspondent Ahn Sung-jin is at one of the top five hospitals where doctors have been walking out of.
Sung-jin, tell us a little bit more about the scene you're at and how the countries' doctors are taking collective action.

Good morning Ye-eun.
I am standing in front of Severance Hospital in Sinchon, Seoul where trainee doctors have staged a walkout starting from 6am this morning.
Now this hospital is one of South Korea’s so-called "big 5" hospitals where more than 20 percent of the total number of trainee doctors work.
These Big 5 hospital have nearly 3-thousand residents and one-third of those residents have submitted their resignations.
This hospital in particular saw the most cases of doctors leaving the workplace.

These walkouts are in protest of a government policy which aims to increase the quota of medical school admissions by 2000 places starting next year.
Doctors' groups argue that increasing the number of doctors would lead to unnecessary medical care on top of a lack of incentives for doctors to practice in essential areas such as pediatrics and emergency medicine.
But health authorities said more doctors are vital to keep up with the country's fast-aging population.
The number of doctors in the country relative to the size of the population is reportedly among the lowest in the developed world.

As these trainee doctors play a key role in medical processes, at least 25 operations have been cancelled and 34 official complaints have been made by patients.
As of 11 PM yesterday, more than half of other trainee doctors from other major hospitals nationwide, nearly 7-thousand residents in all, have submitted their resignation letters as well.
As walkouts begin today after the mass resignations of trainee doctors, the Health Ministry and medical community says that the temporary system they've put in place could hold up for only 2 or 3 weeks without these key medical personnel.
The Korean Medical Residents Association will be discussing further responses at the emergency meeting which just begun at noon.

With concerns over a lack of necessary medical personnel at those hospitals, how is the government looking to respond to this?

About 4-hundred emergency medical institutions nationwide will be monitored 24-hours-a-day from the National Medical Center.
If the gap due to a lack of necessary doctors remains for a longer period, the government also announced that it will allow non face-to-face treatment.

"There are 12 military hospitals where emergency rooms are operating. We have also decided to open them to civilians."


Now the government has maintained its position, refusing to accept doctors’ demands and denouncing their collective action as "intolerable."
It is said that President Yoon said that the medical community cannot defeat the people.
The Yoon administration had sent a prior notice to key figures such as the chairman of the Emergency Response Committee of the Korean Medical Association regarding the suspension of their doctor's licenses.
The Health Ministry also just issued a work-start order to 7-hundred-57 medical residents.
Whether this will be taken as a warning to the medical community will be something to watch out for.

That's all I have for now.
Back to you Ye-eun.

That was our correspondent Ahn Sung-jin from Severance Hospital in Seoul.

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2024-02-20, 12:00 (KST)