Patients are unable to get treatment or are facing long waits as the health crisis spreads in South Korea, with many doctors on leave and hospitals paralyzed.
“I heard on the news that doctors are on strike, but since this is a public hospital, I thought there wouldn’t be any problems, right?” Lim Chun-geun, 75, asked anxiously as he stood in front of the Denver Medical Center in Seoul.
Mr Lim, who praised the government's decision to increase admissions quotas to medical universities, expressed "dismay" when he heard that doctors were on strike to prevent it.
"The respect I had for doctors is gone," he said.
Mr Lim is not the only one affected by the doctors’ strike. Many patients have had their treatment delayed because the hospital does not have enough staff to cope.
"Our son is severely disabled due to a traumatic brain injury and has to be hospitalized. But all the major hospitals have announced that they cannot accept him, and the interns have left. We have to wait at home, it's so stressful," said Koo Jin-hee, 51, a relative of a patient at Severance Hospital.
Anxiety filled the waiting room at Severance Hospital on February 26. Many were concerned about the medical loopholes at five major hospitals in South Korea: Seoul National University Hospital, Asan Medical Center, St. Mary’s Hospital, Severance Hospital, and Samsung Medical Center.
The facilities announced they would stop providing routine outpatient care as interns and residents resigned. This type of care will be reintroduced in May.
Cho Hyeon-woo, 35, has a terminally ill son in critical condition. However, he cannot register the boy for treatment at any hospital. The father has no choice but to transfer his son to a lower-level hospital.
"I understand the doctor's point of view, but we don't know when our child will need another emergency surgery. We are extremely worried," he shared.
In recent days, all staff working in the pediatrics department of Severance Hospital have submitted their resignations, except for the fourth-year residents. The door to the emergency department's resident office is closed to the media and patients.
Four of the eight resident doctors at Kyunggi Medical Center have also resigned. The remaining four plan to apply for leave later this month. At Seongnam Medical Center, the largest public medical facility in eastern Kyunggi Province, three resident doctors have not shown up for work since Feb. 19.
Dr. Ryu O. Hada, 25, one of the strikers, takes off his white coat at a hospital in Seoul, February 25. Photo: Reuters
A heavy burden for those left behind
As the strike continues, many doctors are leaving, putting a strain on the remaining medical staff. In major hospitals, some professors and researchers are working 90-hour weeks. If this continues for another two weeks or more, the remaining doctors will “collapse,” experts say. For medical professionals struggling to “fill the gap,” the workload will only increase.
The emergency department of Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, where all six interns and residents had resigned, was completely paralyzed. The remaining 11 medical professionals divided the duties of the remaining staff. They struggled as the number of patients increased. Many who had previously gone to secondary hospitals began flocking to tertiary hospitals.
"I used to work 88 hours a week as an intern and resident. Now I'm back to those days. The workload has doubled," said Lee Hyung-min, an emergency medicine professor at Sacred Heart Hospital.
Professors like Lee persevere despite the difficulties, but he stresses that doesn't mean they agree with the new policies.
“The government should know that we are persistent because the system will collapse without us,” he said.
The workload is even more severe at tertiary hospitals outside Seoul, where health infrastructure is poor. Metropolitan areas have secondary hospitals to transfer patients if needed. The situation in the provinces is not as good. Medical staff sometimes work three days straight without a break.
“We lost all three of our emergency department residents. The remaining two specialists had to fill the void, so the workload has definitely increased,” said a specialist at a general hospital in the area.
Without residents, faculty members are also saddled with backlogs of work, to the point where they cannot participate in any outside activities. Many have canceled conferences and press conferences, devoting themselves to hospital duties.
Another team struggling with a stressful workload is nurses - who are trying to fill the void left by the strikers.
"Normally, nurses only work during the day. Now, they have to work the interns' shifts, which means working 30 hours straight until the next morning," said a nurse at a tertiary hospital in the area.
Observers fear that South Korea’s health care system could collapse as more and more medical staff become exhausted. The overcrowding is so severe that there have been cases of cancer drugs being prescribed on the wrong day because doctors can no longer tell the time of week, according to a 50-year-old professor.
"If this continues, I don't know where we will go. The work is making lecturers in the fields of internal medicine and surgery increasingly tired," said the director of a tertiary hospital in Seoul.
Since February 20, more than 9,000 medical doctors, the core force in caring for and treating critically ill patients, have left hospitals to protest the policy of increasing enrollment quotas in medical schools. This has plunged South Korea into a major medical crisis.
The doctors are protesting against the government’s proposed medical education reform, which calls for an increase in medical school enrolment quotas by 2,000 from 2025. They say the plan to increase the number of medical students will impact the quality of health services, as well as their income and social status. Instead of increasing enrolment quotas, the government should address the income and working conditions of current health workers.
Thuc Linh (According to Hankyoreh )
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