The Interior Ministry of South Korea confirmed Tuesday that it “intends to take administrative action” against an estimated 7,000 doctors who went on strike in late February and have yet to return, unleashing chaos on the already understaffed Korean healthcare system.
Those identified could lose their licenses to practice medicine for a year, serve jail time, and face other potential punishments.
Most of those abandoning their posts are trainee doctors. An estimated 10,000 trainee doctors resigned from their jobs in mid-February — out of about 13,000 doctors — and 9,000 did not show up to work once the strike began. Seoul officials stated on Tuesday that they are in contact with the nation’s hospitals and will confirm the names of those who have gone on strike and abandoned their patients before taking any punitive action.
“On Monday, the government gathered evidence of noncompliance involving some 7,000 trainee doctors and intends to take administrative action against them in accordance with the Medical Service Act,” Lee Han-kyung, the Interior Ministry’s chief disaster management official, said on Tuesday, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap.
South Korean doctors participate in a rally against the government’s medical policy on March 3, 2024, in Seoul, South Korea. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
“Doctors are subject to suspension of their medical licenses for up to a year, or could face three years in prison or a fine of 30 million won (US$22,455), for not complying with such government orders,” Yonhap reported.
The doctors began their strike on February 20 in response to conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol announcing a plan to dramatically increase the number of doctors in the country. South Korea has long struggled with doctor shortages that have exacerbated as the population ages, the country maintains the lowest birth rate in the world, and medical students flock to specialties such as cosmetology over lower-paying but more essential fields such as emergency work or pediatrics.
The doctors reacted belligerently to the news of more competition, walking off the jobs and leaving South Korea’s hospitals to make due by giving nurses more responsibilities and rejecting patients. The government has attempted to sustain the healthcare system by opening up military hospitals temporarily to civilian patients and allowing nurses to take some responsibilities typically left for doctors, among other measures. Hospitals have nonetheless struggled to care for patients with their doctors walking out, leading to reported instances of emergencies in which hospitals have rejected ambulances.
The Yoon administration gave the striking doctors a deadline of March 1 to return to work, but few did, and thousands attended an anti-government protest in Seoul demanding no increase in the number of medical school students on Sunday.
Doctors rally next to Yeouido Park in Seoul, South Korea, on March 3, 2024, to oppose the expansion of medical school quotas and the essential medical care package. (Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Adding to confirmations that the Yoon administration would seek to impose consequences on the strikers, Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo announced on Tuesday that the government would “send documents to the defiant trainee doctors, as an administrative step to suspend their licenses.”
“The government intends to make on-site investigations to find out violations, which will be followed with responses under the law and principles,” Park told reporters. “The responses to key officials responsible for the collective action leading to chaos in the medical sector will be executed sternly and promptly.”
Consequences for the doctors would be “irreversible,” Park added.
The Korea JoongAng Daily newspaper reported on Tuesday that the government is studying the potential for criminal consequences for the doctors. At least five doctors — senior members of the Korean Medical Association (KMA) — are facing criminal repercussions for allegedly having planned and organized the walkout. Police raided the Seoul and Gangwon Province KMA offices on Friday, the deadline for doctors to return home, as part of the criminal investigation. The pool of five could potentially expand, officials asserted. JoongAng quoted Lee, the Interior Ministry official, stating that the government would “strictly respond according to law and principle to trainee doctors who are not fulfilling their responsibilities as medical professionals.”
Authorities also confirmed that the five people implicated in the KMA raid would face police interrogation starting on Wednesday. On Sunday, police announced a ban on four of the five leaving the country, an attempt to prevent them from potentially fleeing justice:
The four people who have been prohibited from leaving the country are Kim Taek-woo, chief of the emergency committee of the KMA; Joo Soo-ho, head of the committee’s public relations; Park Myung-ha, president of the Seoul Medical Association; and Lim Hyun-taek, president of the Korean Pediatric Association.
The fifth person targeted in the raid is Former KMA chairman Roh Hwan-kyu.
The travel ban immediately preceded the Seoul rally, where Kim Taek-woo accused the government of trying to “repress” doctors.
“The government will face resistance from the public if it turns a blind eye to doctors’ voices and tries to repress them,” he told those assembled.
“The government is pushing the reforms unilaterally and that, the doctors cannot accept under any circumstances,” Al Jazeera quoted Kim. “The government is very aware of the reasons why all doctors are opposing the increase in the medical school admissions but are exploiting policies to turn doctors into slaves forever.”
According to JoongAng, police claimed up to 9,000 attended Sunday’s protests, while organizers claimed 40,000 people participated.
Yoon’s plan to increase the number of doctors in South Korea would call for an extra 2,000 medical students in 2025 and, ultimately, an extra 10,000 students by 2035.
“Increasing the medical school admissions quota by 2,000 is the bare minimum necessary measure to ensure the state can fulfill its constitutional mandate,” Yoon said in late February, stating the country needs “about 10,000 more doctors to secure an adequate number of doctors in areas with shortages of medical professionals to ensure fair access to health services.”