Medical interns and residents have resigned or gone on strike over a recruitment proposal.
Doctors staged rallies in Seoul last week protesting against the government's plan to bump up numbersSouth Korea's government has ordered more than 1,000 junior doctors to return to work after many staged walk-outs in protest of plans to increase the number of doctors in the system.South Korea has one of the lowest doctor-per-patient ratios among OECD countries so the government wants to add more medical school placements.
"More doctors mean more competition and reduced income for them... that is why they are against the proposal to increase physician supply," said Prof Soonman Kwon, a public health expert at Seoul National University. The health ministry said 1,630 doctors had not shown up at work on Monday, amid a wider group of 6,415 who had submitted resignation letters. Organisers had pledged an all-out strike from Tuesday.
The protests are similar to events in 2020, when up to 80% of junior doctors joined strikes opposing the government's recruitment plans. To combat this, President Yoon Suk-yeol has proposed adding 2,000 spots per year to medical schools - which currently take a cohort of just over 3,000 students every year - a rate that has not changed since 2006.However the plan has been strongly opposed by the medical profession, with groups like the Korean Medical Association arguing an increase would be a strain on the money available under the national health insurance scheme.
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