South Korea has a contingency plan for a prolonged walkout by trainee doctors that has threatened the delivery of health care as they protest against a plan to increase medical school enrollment, according to the nation’s health minister.
The country is prepared for a worst-case scenario in which a large number of the trainee doctors in the walkout don’t return to work, Health and Welfare Minister Cho KyooHong said in an interview Tuesday, declining to elaborate on details of the plan. With doctors and the government at loggerheads, the walkout looks like it could take time to reach a resolution. As a way to fill gaps in the system so far, the government has opened up emergency rooms at military hospitals to the public, allowed telemedicine nationwide and encouraged people with minor illnesses to visit local clinics in their neighborhoods.
Cho said the government won’t back down from its plan to increase annual enrollment at medical schools by 2,000 from the current 3,058 to alleviate a doctor shortage that ranks among the most acute the developed world. “That is the core of our medical reforms and we do not at all consider holding out a cut as a bargaining chip,” Cho told Bloomberg News from his office in Seoul. The government contends that the number of slots at medical schools hasn’t increased for nearly three decades and poses enormous risks for the health-care system in the rapidly aging country.
About 7,000 of the country’s 13,000 trainee doctors have not returned to work and Cho demanded they end their labor action that has entered its third week.
“It’s not a matter between the government and doctors,” he said. “There’s demand from the public – doctors should change their mind. The door for dialogue is always open. We can talk about various problems in the medical system.” South Korea, Japan and other countries place quotas on medical school seats in a way to regulate the number of doctors. Japan, which faces a similar demographic challenge as its neighbor, has raised its quota in recent years while South Korea has not.
The doctors contend the enrollment plan won’t fix fundamental problems such as a shortage of physicians in fields seen as lower paying, a concentration of doctors in urban areas and a malpractice system they contend makes it difficult for them to do their jobs effectively. The trainee doctors, similar to medical residents, play key roles in emergency care. Their walkout has led hospitals to turn away patients and about a 50% reduction in surgeries, the government has said. “An increase in medical school enrollments won’t impact on us for a decade,” said Park In-sook, a member of the Korean Medical Association, a major lobby group for the profession. “This protest isn’t about money, it’s about the future of our country,” she told reporters.
Polling indicates the public is siding with the government, seeing the reform as a way to cut waiting times for health care. South Korean doctors rank among the best paid among OECD members in comparison to average wages, which has led to criticism the labor action may be more about protecting the earning power of physicians rather than improving the health-care system.