Senior Doctor On Vacation In The Middle Of Junior Strike, 2 Big Hospitals In Seoul Stop While Road Care Clinics

ILLUSTRATION OF UNSPLASH/Piron Guillaume

JAKARTA - Two major public hospitals in Seoul, South Korea will delay outpatient and outpatient clinics as senior doctors begin taking weekly holidays amid a prolonged strike by junior doctors.

As Yonhap reported on Tuesday, April 30, a large number of doctors in hospitals in the area around Seoul also took weekly holidays. The hospital is Seoul National University Bambang Hospital, Yongin Severance Hospital, and Ansan University of Korea Hospital will participate in this movement.

The professors at St. Hospital Mary Seoul are also preparing to suspend non-critical surgical services every Friday and professors at the Asan Medical Center are also planning a holiday on the same day.

Emergency rooms and hospitalizations will remain available at two Seoul National University Hospital hospitals and the Severance Hospital, while the health ministry estimates there will be no major disruption despite the one-day labor action carried out by medical professors.

Second Deputy Health Minister Park Min-soo said Monday (29/4) that the government would deploy more military doctors to fulfill the weekly holidays of medical professors.

"There will be no major disturbance," Park told reporters as reported by ANTARA.

About 12,000 training doctor doctors have left their duties since February 20 in protest against plans to increase the number of medical students by 2,000 people.

The action resulted in delays in medical treatment and several emergency rooms limiting some of their treatment of critically ill patients.

Meanwhile, government policies are considered to have received attention after Presidents Yoon Suk Yeol and Lee Jae-myung, chairman of the Democratic main opposition party, agreed to the need for medical reform the previous day.

Lee promised active cooperation from his party in the government's medical reform plan, including his decision to increase admission of medical schools.