A view of a university hospital in Seoul (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea will soon allow health authorities to obtain real-time information on medical staffing at hospitals and clinics during national emergencies, under a revised law passed by the National Assembly this week.
The amendment to the Health and Medical Workforce Support Act, approved on December 2 and set to take effect six months after promulgation, empowers the Minister of Health and Welfare to require medical institutions to submit up-to-date employment data when disasters, infectious-disease outbreaks, or other crisis conditions arise.
Under current law, the government conducts a workforce survey only once every three years, a cadence critics say has hampered its ability to allocate personnel swiftly during urgent situations. The revision aims to close that gap by ensuring the government can identify staffing shortages without delay.
Hospital directors will be required to comply with government requests for employment data unless they have legitimate grounds for refusal.
This photo shows a corridor inside a university general hospital in Seoul. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
The measure faced strong resistance from physicians when it was first introduced. Medical groups, still wary after bitter policy clashes with the previous administration, argued that the government could use the information to exert control over doctors under the guise of emergency preparedness.
A Health Ministry official acknowledged the opposition but said lawmakers agreed the reform was necessary. The ministry will later define the specific conditions that qualify as an emergency.
With the years-long standoff between the government and doctors now largely settled, organized resistance has quieted. But medical groups say they will be watching closely as the government clarifies what constitutes an emergency.
“Gathering workforce information on a routine basis is reasonable,” an official from the Korean Medical Association said. “But if the government attempts to invoke this authority in situations of its own making, as in past conflicts, there will inevitably be problems.”
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
