Emergency Care Crisis Drives South Korea's Push for Medical Reform

Seoul: The health ministry stated on Thursday that the challenges hospitals encounter in running emergency rooms have been a longstanding issue in South Korea. This concern is a key factor behind the government's push for medical reform, which includes expanding the medical school admission quota.

Concerns have mounted over the national emergency care system as several hospitals have shortened the operation hours of emergency rooms after suffering from medical staff shortages as a result of the ongoing walkout by junior doctors protesting the government's medical reform plans, Yonhap news agency reported.

"Emergency care difficulties have long been an issue in the existing medical system. Reforming this fundamentally is a reason for the government to push for medical reform," Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo told a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters.

As of Wednesday, four hospitals, including Ewha Womans University's medical center in the Mokdong district of Seoul and Kangwon National University Hospital in Chuncheon, have shortened operation hours of emergency rooms, and Soonchunyang University Hospital in the central city of Cheonan plans to partially suspend emergency care services for children.

The government deployed 15 military doctors to assist in the emergency rooms of five hospitals Wednesday and plans to send an additional 235 military doctors and public physicians to other thinly stretched hospitals across the country by Monday.

In an effort to ensure emergency care services during and around the five-day Chuseok holiday later this month, the government designated Sept. 11-25 as a special period and set up an emergency task force that will be in charge of managing the situation of 409 emergency medical centers across the country.

"The government will closely work with local governments and medical institutions to overcome the difficulties," Park said.

As part of the medical system reform, the Yoon Suk Yeol administration has vowed to increase the medical school admissions quota by 2,000 seats per year over the next five years or so to address a shortage of doctors, and it finalized a hike of some 1,500 students for next year.

Doctors claim that medical schools will not be able to handle the increased enrollment, which will compromise the quality of medical education and ultimately the country's medical services.

Park on Thursday repeated calls for doctors to come forward for "constructive discussions," stressing that the government is ready to talk if the medical community presents a "reasonable way" regarding the number of medical school seats for 2026.