Gyeonggi-do Establishes 'Emergency Response' for Second Medical General Strike

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] As the Korea Medical Association entered its second general strike on the 26th in opposition to the government’s health care issues such as the increase in medical school quotas, Gyeonggi Province has launched emergency measures including guidance on medical institutions available for treatment and 24-hour normal operation of emergency medical institutions.

On the first day of the strike, Gyeonggi Province is providing information on its website (www.gg.go.kr) about medical institutions that are not participating in the strike or are available for treatment to ensure that residents do not experience inconvenience in using hospitals.

In addition, to prevent gaps in treatment for emergency patients, the province requested 91 emergency medical institutions, emergency medical facilities, and emergency rooms of general hospitals within the province to maintain an emergency treatment system capable of 24-hour emergency patient care.

Accordingly, four hospitals under the Gyeonggi Provincial Medical Center?Uijeongbu, Paju, Icheon, and Pocheon hospitals?and Seongnam City Medical Center will operate outpatient treatment and emergency rooms 24 hours normally during the general strike period. However, Suwon and Anseong hospitals of the Gyeonggi Medical Center will not operate emergency rooms due to COVID-19 response.

Furthermore, 352 hospital-level or higher medical institutions in the province were urged to expand weekday treatment hours and provide weekend and holiday treatment so that all can maintain normal treatment.

Since the 24th, the province has set up an emergency treatment situation room, maintaining an emergency contact network from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., continuously monitoring the normal operation of emergency treatment institutions during the strike period.

The situation room will operate until the end of the strike.

Meanwhile, on the 20th, the Ministry of Health and Welfare sent official letters to cities and counties instructing them to issue treatment orders on scheduled collective closure days and closure report orders for clinic-level medical institutions. If the closure rate exceeds 10%, cities and counties may decide on their own, and if it exceeds 15%, they must issue work commencement orders to clinics.

A provincial official emphasized, "We will thoroughly respond to the strike according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s guidelines, maintain the emergency treatment system, and do our best to prevent any medical service gaps."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.