The strike by intern doctors in South Korea is reaching another climax. South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare filed a criminal complaint with the police on Tuesday against five members of the Korean Medical Association lobby group for allegedly violating the medical law and the government's return-to-work order, which may result in the five doctors' medical licenses being revoked.
It is also the first time the South Korean government has taken legal action against doctors involved in the protests, increasing political pressure on South Korean doctors to return to work by Thursday. All doctors participating in the strike have previously been threatened with punishment from the South Korean government.
South Korean President Yoon Seok-yue called on doctors to end the strike, saying the action was threatening the lives of patients. He also stressed that the government would not succumb to pressure from the medical profession's strike and would be ready to start arresting, prosecuting and revoking the licenses of doctors who initiated the strike.
Doctors began protesting last week against the South Korean government's plan to increase enrollment quotas in medical schools. The government expects to add 2,000 new study places starting next year, equivalent to two-thirds of the current medical student places, to ease South Korea's future medical pressure.
Currently, about 9,000 intern doctors are participating in the strike, accounting for about 70% of all intern doctors in South Korea. More than 13,000 medical students across South Korea (70% of the total) joined the protests and applied for suspension of studies.
Everyone has their own position
Joo Sooho, spokesman for the Korean Medical Association, said the government's complaints against the five doctors were an unfair exercise of government power. Members are willing to explain their position to the police if the government intends to summon them.
The medical community insists that the South Korean government's efforts to develop plans to increase the number of doctors do not address underlying problems, with poor working conditions, a concentration of doctors in urban areas and insufficient protections against malpractice lawsuits putting doctors' careers at risk.
South Korea is a country with the lowest ratio of doctors to total population among developed countries, and many doctors are concentrated in departments such as plastic surgery departments, which are more profitable, and are extremely resistant to places such as pediatrics and emergency departments that earn microblogs and work extremely long hours.
This is one of the reasons why the South Korean government wants to increase the number of doctors, but the medical community believes that this policy will only increase internal competition in the medical community, thereby causing unnecessary internal consumption of medical resources.
Affected by the doctors' strike, the South Korean government pointed out that the number of surgeries in South Korean hospitals has been reduced by about 50%, and because of the shortage of staff in emergency rooms, hospitals have had to start turning away patients.
The Korean public supports the Korean government's tough stance on recalling doctors. Some critics pointed out that the doctors' strike was more about protecting the high income and social status of Korean doctors than improving the service quality of South Korea's health care system.
This dispute has also raised the approval rating of Yin Xiyue's government to a three-month high, and the public expects him to forcefully suppress this unreasonable action from the medical community.
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