Nurses are busy taking care of patients at a hospital in Seoul on Feb. 27, 2024, when the health ministry announced a measure to allow them to conduct some roles of doctors under legal protection to fill the medical vacuum caused by a prolonged walkout by nearly 10,000 trainee doctors protesting against the government’s plan to increase the number of medical students. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Nearly 300 trainee doctors who walked off their jobs to protest the government’s plan to increase medical school admissions returned to work during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, an official said Thursday.
The 294 were tallied as of 11 a.m. Wednesday in a survey of 100 key teaching hospitals across the nation, and included 24 at a hospital in the capital area, 37 at a hospital in Seoul and 66 at a hospital in the Jeolla region.
Around 9,000 trainee doctors have walked off the job since Tuesday last week to protest the government’s plan to raise the medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 starting next year.
The government has set Thursday midnight as the deadline for the trainee doctors to return to work, vowing to take punitive measures, such as suspending licenses and indictment, in the event they refuse.
“The entire nation wishes for doctors to return to patients’ sides,” a presidential official told Yonhap News Agency. “We earnestly plead with you to return by the deadline.”
(Yonhap)
