Patients wait outside the hospital room at Incheon Medical Center on April 23 (Photo: Reuters).
“Our artificial kidney clinic has been closed for nearly two years because we cannot find a doctor. This has become a national problem,” said Cho Seung-yeon, director of Incheon City Medical Center. .
South Korea has entered the third month since intern doctors simultaneously went on strike to protest the government’s plan to increase medical school enrollment.
Previously, there was a continuous shortage of doctors in small cities in Korea. Experts say this trend will get worse as South Korea’s population ages at the fastest rate, while its birth rate is the lowest in the world.
Faced with that situation, the Korean government decided to increase medical school admission quotas by thousands from next year.
This faced fierce opposition from interns and many other doctors who did not appreciate the effectiveness of improving the working conditions of doctors by this policy.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), South Korea has 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people. For developed countries, this rate is in the lowest group. In contrast, Austria ranked highest with 5.5 doctors per 1,000 people.
South Korean medical interns and resident doctors began striking at the end of February. They demanded that the government address the problem of low salaries and overwork of doctors before deciding to increase quotas. Admissions.
