정부 ‘업무개시명령서’ vs 전공의 ‘집단사직서’

Given the threat from the Ministry of Health to take criminal action against them, hundreds of doctors in training stayed on strike.

The government has given instructions to 358 medical interns and fourth-year residents who left their employment last Friday to return to emergency rooms and ICUs in 20 hospitals in Seoul and Gyeonggi, according to Yoon Tae-ho, a senior official at the Ministry of Health.

On-site checks were being performed at major hospitals to test if trainee doctors complied with the order, Yoon said, adding that order violators could be punished with a prison term of up to three years, or a fine of up to 30 million won ($25,000) and revocation of a medical license.

A coordinated 72-hour strike was initiated on Wednesday by leaders of the Korean Medical Association (KMA) in solidarity with the trainee doctors to protest four policies in the government's health care reform program.

The most controversial of the measures are an rise in admissions to medical schools and the creation of a public medical school which would be skewed by the Korean Intern Resident Association (KIRA), the group responsible for the strike, argues by allowing new doctors to specialize in lucrative non-essential services such as plastic surgery.

In rural areas, where the elderly population is rapidly increasing, the government argues that an increase in the number of doctors is required to meet health care demands. The number of physicians per 1000 people in Korea currently stands at 2.4, slightly lower than an average of 3.5 in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Last month 's announcement from the Health Ministry that it was preparing to increase the number of medical school admissions by 400 annually to a maximum of 4,000 in the next decade prompted intense resistance from both KIRA and KMA, culminating in their decision to launch coordinate strikes — all in the wake of a new rise in Covid-19 cases in the greater Seoul area.

The government's threats that legal action would be taken if trainees did not return to their positions apparently did little to dissuade them, with KIRA reporting Thursday that 76 percent of all 16,000 interns and four-year residents submitted letters of resignation as objections to the policies.

However, it's not clear how many of those letters were actually filed. Several major hospitals in the capital including Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital and Konkuk University Medical Center said they had not received any resignations as of Thursday morning.

The actual number of doctors participating in the general strike this week appeared to be smaller than what the KMA had admitted to the government in its earlier alerts, at about 10 per cent.

While it has a membership of more than 100,000 — primarily because all physicians in Korea are automatically registered with the association once they obtain their licences — the KMA has been criticized for being unrepresentative of the broader medical profession and subject to the whims of a handful of its more prominent members who have ample time to devote to its activities.

Its current chief, Choi Dae-zip, is a reported right-wing protester known for non-medicinal political actions, such as calling for the release of former president Park Geun-hye from jail.

Choi sent an open letter Thursday to leaders of KMA throughout the country calling for their help with the strike.

A that public outcry against the strike is part of what could dissuade greater participation, as it coincides with what is increasingly looking like another Covid-19 mass contagion in the region.

A poll released on Thursday by Realmeter, conducted among 500 respondents nationwide, showed that 51 percent agreed with the government's back-to-work order to trainee doctors, as opposed to 42 percent who said it was a "unilateral decision." The survey had a 95 percent confidence level and a 4.4 percentage point margin of error.