Photo courtesy of Marco Verch via Flickr
Morgan Nguyen ʼ26
Contributing Writer
South Korea’s healthcare system faces a significant upheaval as doctors continue their strike, demanding better pay and working conditions. The ongoing protest has raised concerns about the accessibility and quality of healthcare services for millions of citizens.
The strike started in early February in response to a government proposal to increase the admissions quota for medical schools, The New York Times reported. The government had aimed to address the shortage of doctors in key professions; however, doctors have fiercely criticized the move, saying that it does not address the long-standing structural problems of the medical field, according to Euronews Health.
As a result, doctors have engaged in an ongoing strike to protest the plan. The 12,000 striking doctors make up 93% of the interns and residents workforce, also known as junior doctors, The Guardian reported.
They represent less than 10% of South Korea’s 140,000 doctors but account for 30-40% of doctors at major hospitals, according to an article by TIME.
Additionally, medical professors have also joined the fight “by reducing their workload to 52 hours per week (legal working hours), compared with 80 hours on average,” Le Monde reported. Nearly 5,000 medical students from 40 universities are also boycotting classes, according to Euronews Health.
Since the strike took effect, many major hospitals have remained short-staffed, with delays in appointments and hospital procedures, The New York Times reported. Patients, particularly those with chronic illnesses or in need of urgent care, are feeling the brunt of the strike’s effects, including one patient in her 80s who died from terminal cancer because hospitals operating at maxed capacity could not admit her in time.
In response, the South Korean government has ordered doctors to return to their positions and has since moved to take legal action against those who do not comply by suspending their license for three months, The Korea Herald reported.
Such a suspension “would delay trainee doctors from becoming medical specialists by more than a year since they would fail to fulfill their training period requirements,” and that “their records and reasons for administrative disciplinary action would toughen their chances of landing a job.” Thus, as of March 12, up to 4,900 of the striking doctors are at risk of losing their licenses, according to The Guardian.
The police force was also deployed to conduct a strict investigation into five senior members of the Korean Medical Association, prompted by an allegation that they had incited the strike, AP News reported. As of March 18, two senior doctors, Park Myung-Ha and Kim Taek-woo, have been issued a suspension of their license. Both are prominent members of the KMA: Park is the KMA’s consolidation chief, and Kim is the head of the organization’s emergency response committee, The Korea Times reported.
According to Al Jazeera, as a temporary measure to address the physician shortage, the government has also deployed its military physicians to hospitals where trainee doctors have gone on strike. This includes 20 military surgeons and 138 public health doctors who are assigned to 20 hospitals over four weeks; however, they are only a small fraction of the 2,400 military doctors on staff, according to a report by Reuters.
Despite the potential for suspension, most doctors have remained on strike. Yonhap News, a local South Korean news agency, reported that only 565 of the junior doctors have returned to medical practice as of Feb. 29, the deadline after which legal action would be taken.
The striking doctors argue that the policy does not address the fundamental problem: admitted students will likely still go into high-paying fields like plastic surgery and dermatology, replicating the trends of current medical students; as a result, “the long-running shortage of physicians in essential yet lower-paying areas like pediatrics, obstetrics and emergency departments would remain unchanged,” Euronews Health reported. Furthermore, the additional recruitment “will compromise the quality of services,” according to The Guardian.
Instead, doctors urge the government to concentrate on improving the pay and working conditions of junior doctors. According to a status survey conducted in 2022 by the Korean Intern Resident Association, up to 75.4% of interns reported working more than an average of 80 hours a week over four weeks.
The survey also revealed the rates of overworked doctors are concentrated in specialties such as thoracic surgery, surgery, neurosurgery, orthopedics, internship, ophthalmology, obstetrics and gynecology and internal medicine. Additionally, their rates of stress perception, depression, and suicidal thoughts are comparatively higher than the general population.
In a statement, the World Medical Association expressed support for the strike, saying that “[the] government’s unilateral decision to drastically increase medical student admissions, implemented without clear evidence, has led to turmoil in the medical community… Physicians, including medical students and young doctors, are peacefully practicing their rights within the boundaries of democratic law and constitution.”
Despite this, the admissions policy has received widespread support from the population. In a survey published by Gallup Korea Research Institute, up to 76% of respondents expressed support for the expansion of medical school admissions. Additionally, the approval rating for Yoon Suk Yeol – the South Korean president – has climbed from 39.5% to 41.2%, while his People Power Party gained an edge with 46.7% support, giving him “a sorely needed political victory” ahead of the next legislative election in April, Nikkei Asia reported.
As the strike enters another day, the future of South Korea’s healthcare system hangs in the balance. With patients facing increasing challenges in accessing essential care, pressure is mounting on both sides to find common ground and end the standoff. Until a resolution is reached, the ramifications of the strike will continue to reverberate throughout the nation’s healthcare landscape.