This photo taken April 11, 2024, shows an empty hospital in Seoul. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Apr. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — The health ministry said Friday it will send more than 2,700 additional physician assistant (PA) nurses to hospitals to minimize medical system disruptions amid a prolonged walkout by trainee doctors.
More than 90 percent of South Korea’s 13,000 trainee doctors have walked off the job in protest since Feb. 20 in protest of the government’s push to increase the number of medical school seats by 2,000 starting next year from the current 3,058 seats.
The walkout has caused major chaos in the medical field, as such junior doctors had played a key role in major hospitals, and PAs and other medical staff have been struggling to fill the void.
As of end-March, there were 8,982 PAs working at 375 general hospitals nationwide, and the government plans to add 2,715 such nurses to raise the total number to around 12,000, according to the health ministry.
To reach that goal, the government said it will conduct “intensive” education and training programs for them starting next week.
Often called clinical nurse specialists or operating room nurses, PAs are supposed to take over part of the duties of junior doctors in medical institutions, such as conducting tests and performing partial surgeries.
The government has said it is open to talks, and President Yoon Suk Yeol met with the chief of a striking trainee doctors’ group earlier this month. But no immediate breakthrough has been reported.
The government has been stressing the need for the admission quota increase to address a shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas and essential medical fields, such as high-risk surgeries, pediatrics, obstetrics and emergency medicine.
Given South Korea’s rapid population aging and other issues, the country is expected to fall short by 15,000 doctors by 2035.
But doctors argue that the med school enrollment quota hike would compromise the quality of medical education and services and create a surplus of physicians, adding that the government must devise ways of better protecting them from malpractice suits and extending compensation to induce more physicians to practice in such “unpopular” areas.
(Yonhap)
