protest<\/a> government medical training reforms, causing healthcare chaos.<\/p>\nThe walkout, which started Feb 20, is over government plans to sharply increase the number of doctors, which it says is essential to combat shortages and serve South Korea\u2019s rapidly ageing population. Medics argue the increase will erode service quality.<\/p>\n
Nearly 12,000 junior doctors \u2014 93 per cent of the trainee workforce \u2014 were not in their hospitals at the last count, despite government back-to-work orders and threats of legal action, forcing Seoul to mobilise military medics and millions of dollars in state reserves to ease the situation.<\/p>\n
The health ministry said it had sent administrative notifications \u2014 the first step towards suspending medical licences \u2014 to thousands of trainee doctors after they defied specific orders telling them to return to their hospitals.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of March 8 (notifications) have been sent to more than 4,900 trainee doctors,\u201d Chun Byung-wang, director of the health and medical policy division at the health ministry, told reporters.<\/p>\n
The government has previously warned striking doctors that they face a three-month suspension of their licences, a punishment it says will delay by at least a year their ability to qualify as specialists. Chun urged the striking medics to return to their patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government will take into account the circumstance and protect trainee doctors if they return to work before the administrative measure is complete,\u201d he said, indicating that doctors who come back to work now could avoid the punishment.<\/p>\n
Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL: South Korea said on Monday it had started procedures to suspend the medical licences of 4,900 junior doctors who have resigned and stopped working to protest government medical training reforms, causing healthcare chaos. The walkout, which started Feb 20, is over government plans to sharply increase the number of doctors, which it says is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/03\/1209503014a164b.png?r=095138","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t