South Korea Immediately Sends A Strike Doctor's Suspension Notification

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA The South Korean government is expected to immediately send a first notification regarding plans to suspend medical permits for doctors who are still undergoing training as disciplinary action for strike doctors.

About 90 percent of the country's 13,000 interns and resident doctors are currently unemployed for resigning to mass for nearly three weeks in protest over the government's decision to increase the number of medical students' quotas.

Reported by ANTARA from Yonhap, Saturday, March 9, since Tuesday (5/3) the South Korean government has sent documents to training participant doctors who have not returned to work by giving an initial notification regarding the suspension of medical permits.

The document includes details about orders from the government to return to work and warns that for doctors, who do not submit input no later than March 25, their permits may be suspended in accordance with relevant procedures. Meanwhile, training participant doctors can submit administrative complaints to the government if permission is suspended.

Collective actions carried out by training-participants doctors, who played an important role in assisting operations and emergency services at major public hospitals, are considered by the local government to have resulted in widespread cancellations and delays in operations and emergency medical care at public hospitals across the country.

To overcome the shortage of medical staff, the government has given nurses the authority to expand their role in major hospital emergency rooms since Friday (8/3). Nurses are allowed to carry out pulmonary heart resuscitation (CPR) and provide medicine for emergency patients. Emergency units at military hospitals are also open to the public.

In February, the South Korean Ministry of Health launched a pilot program that allowed nurses to carry out special responsibilities carried out by doctors in limited capacity.