Professors at Wonkwang University Hospital in Iksan, 170 kilometers south of Seoul, leave their lab coats on a pile after submitting their resignations on April 29, 2024. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Apr. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Two major general hospitals in Seoul were set to suspend outpatient clinics and surgeries Tuesday, as their senior doctors began taking a weekly day off amid a protracted walkout by junior doctors in protest of the government’s medical reform.
Emergency rooms and inpatient care will remain in place at the two hospitals — Seoul National University Hospital and Severance Hospital — while the health ministry expected no major disruptions despite the one-day labor action by the medical professors.
In Seoul’s neighboring areas, a significant number of senior doctors at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Yongin Severance Hospital and Korea University Ansan Hospital were set to join the move.
Professors at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital are preparing to suspend noncritical surgical services every Friday as well, with those at Asan Medical Center also planning a day off on the same day.
Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo said Monday that the government will deploy more military doctors to cope with the weekly breaks by medical professors.
“There will be no major disruptions,” Park told reporters.
Doctors walk down a hallway at a university hospital in Seoul on April 29, 2024. Earlier in the day, five major hospitals in Seoul, including Seoul National University Hospital, decided to allow their doctors to have a day of rest each week starting this week due to their excessive workload amid a monthslong nationwide walkout by some 13,000 trainee doctors. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
About 12,000 trainee doctors have left their worksites since Feb. 20 in protest of the plan to boost the number of medical students by 2,000, causing delays in medical treatments, with some emergency rooms partially limiting their treatment of critically ill patients.
The government’s policy, meanwhile, was perceived as gaining traction after President Yoon Suk Yeol and Lee Jae-myung, the head of the main opposition Democratic Party, agreed on the need for medical reform the previous day.
Lee promised the party’s active cooperation on the government’s medical reform plans, including its decision to increase admissions to medical schools.
Prospects for an agreement between the government and the medical community in the near future, however, are also seen as slim as Lim Hyun-taek, the hawkish president-elect of the Korean Medical Association, begins his term Wednesday.
Lim has been claiming that the medical community will not engage in any dialogue until the government completely scraps the medical reform plan.
(Yonhap)
