South Korea will begin deploying military doctors and doctors from public health centers to strike-hit hospitals on Monday to help care for patients affected by a government reform plan that has seen nearly 12,000 trainee doctors at 100 hospitals go on strike.
Health Minister Cho Kyu-hong said at a meeting on Sunday that 20 military surgeons and 138 public health doctors will be sent to 20 hospitals for four weeks.
The number of medics called upon to help so far represents only a fraction of the approximately 2,400 medics on the force, according to a Defense Department briefing.
The government denies that the strike, which began on February 20, has caused a full-scale health crisis, but some hospitals have had to turn away patients and postpone medical procedures.
Health ministry data showed that as of Friday morning, nearly 12,000 protesting doctors at 100 hospitals had resigned over a dispute over the government’s plan to increase medical school admissions, defying pressure from authorities to return to work.
South Korean authorities have been trying to persuade doctors to return to work by warning them they could have their medical licenses revoked, but so far the strategy appears to have had little success.
The health ministry said that as of Friday, it had sent notices to more than 4,900 doctors, instructing them that if they did not explain their actions, authorities could begin revoking their licenses.
Cho told KBS radio station on Monday that doctors who return to work before administrative measures to revoke their licenses are completed will receive “lenient treatment.”
The government has the power to order doctors to return to work if they believe there is a serious risk to life and public health.
The government says plans to increase medical school enrollment by 2,000 students a year from 2025 are crucial to tackling a shortage of doctors in one of the world’s fastest-aging societies.
Striking doctors believe that simply adding more medical students will not solve the problem of wages and working conditions and may exacerbate them.
Critics of the policy also accuse President Yoon Seok-yeol of stoking the fight over health care reform to benefit his party ahead of April’s parliamentary elections.
A survey released by Yonhap News Agency last week showed that 84% of respondents supported adding more doctors, while 43% said striking doctors should be severely punished.
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