The Government of South Korea may actually cancel the medical licences of the thousands of junior doctors who are on strike.
Why is the government threatening them so? Well, the doctors are raising their voices against the government’s intention to significantly increase the number of medical students that are given admission by the universities every year. These walkouts have brought medical services to a halt across the country.
Adding more medical students annually is the government’s way of introducing more doctors into the health system. In a decade’s time, the country fears that it will have more ageing members in its population, with not enough doctors to attend to them.
While the South Korean government is trying to improve the doctor-to-patient ratio, the protesting junior doctors feel that admitting more medical students will not correct the situation. They feel it will only result in even lower pay for the current doctors, who are already overworked and underpaid.
Now the protesting doctors, who have walked out over the past week, have been told that if they fail to return to duty, they may end up losing their licences.
On the face of it, the doctors in South Korea earn a decent income. However, when the number of hours they put in is taken into account, the junior doctors feel that they are not even earning minimum wage. The problem is worsened by the fact that emergency care and surgeries are way too affordable, while cosmetic surgeries and similar non-emergency operations are expensive. This pushes doctors towards such fields where they can earn more. As a result, the basic medical care system is left understaffed and overworked.
