On Monday, South Korea announced that it had begun the process of suspending the medical licenses of 4,900 junior doctors who had quit and ceased their practice in opposition to government changes to medical education, which had disrupted the healthcare system.
The government’s intentions to drastically increase the number of doctors—which the medics think will degrade service quality—are the reason behind the walkout, which began on February 20. The government claims this is necessary to fight shortages and South Korea’s increasingly aging population.
Despite government instructions to return to work and threats of legal action, nearly 12,000 junior doctors, or 93% of the trainee staff, were not in their hospitals at the time of the last count. In order to assist, Seoul had to deploy military medics and millions of dollars in state reserves.
The Health Ministry on Monday said it had sent administrative notifications — the first step to suspending the doctors’ medical licenses — to thousands of trainee doctors after they defied specific orders telling them to return to their hospitals.
“As of March 8 (notifications) have been sent to more than 4,900 trainee doctors,” Chun Byung-wang, director of the health and medical policy division at the health ministry, told reporters.
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