First License Suspension for Resident Expected in About Ten Days... "Government Must Establish Measures to Prevent Medical Vacuum"

Ministry of Health and Welfare: "Complete Administrative Disciplinary Actions as Soon as Possible"
"If 7,000 Licenses Are Suspended, Normal Medical Services Will Be Impossible"
"Cannot Resolve with Military and Public Health Doctors... Large Hospitals Should Only Admit Critical Patients"

As the government began administrative license suspension actions on the 5th against over 7,000 non-returning residents, it is certain that the medical service gap will continue if their return to clinical practice is delayed for a long period due to license suspension. Experts point out that the government must implement measures to resolve the medical service gap caused by disciplinary actions against residents' illegal activities.

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCH), responding to the doctors' collective action, announced that from the 5th, pre-notification letters for administrative license suspension of up to three months will be sent to non-returning residents. Previously, the government issued work commencement orders and medical service maintenance orders to resigning residents, declaring, "If they do not return, measures such as license suspension, license revocation, and judicial action will be taken without exception."

According to the CDSCH, as of 8 p.m. on the 4th, out of 9,970 residents at 100 major training hospitals, 8,983 (90.1%) had left their workplaces. Earlier, the government issued work commencement orders to 9,438 residents and confirmed non-compliance with these orders by 7,854 residents.

Experts expect the first license disciplinary action under the administrative procedures initiated by the government on the 5th to be issued within ten days at the earliest. According to the Administrative Procedures Act, when a government agency imposes obligations or restricts rights, it must notify the party in advance of the facts and legal grounds for the action and conduct a hearing process. Only after the Ministry of Health and Welfare reviews the submitted opinions can the license suspension be finalized.

Kim Kyung-nam, lead attorney at For You Law Office, explained, "Typically, pre-notification letters are sent one month to two weeks before the disciplinary action, but the time varies by case. Since the government has made it clear that it will not accept the positions of the resigning residents, the process may proceed quickly, and the disciplinary action could be issued physically within ten days." A Ministry of Health and Welfare official also stated, "It is difficult to specify the exact timing for completing the procedure, but since the responsible department has limited personnel, we plan to complete the process as quickly as possible by seeking cooperation from other departments."

Although the residents' license suspension is imminent, there are no adequate government measures to address the resulting 'government-induced medical service gap.' The government plans to maintain an emergency medical system by mobilizing available resources such as contingency funds. It also forecasts that the medical service gap in clinical settings will not be significant. At a CDSCH briefing on the day, Park Min-su, the second vice minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, "Since the number of subjects is large and the speed of statement submissions varies, license suspensions will not be carried out simultaneously. While simultaneous license suspension could cause medical service gaps, the actual disciplinary actions will not be conducted all at once."

However, experts point out that whether temporary or sequential, license suspensions for over 7,000 residents will inevitably cause a medical service gap.

Park Eun-chul, professor of preventive medicine at Yonsei University College of Medicine, said, "If 70-80% of all residents' licenses are suspended as the government has declared, it will be difficult to operate training hospitals nationwide. This is because the impact will last not only during the three-month license suspension period but also up to one year due to the shortage of training periods and resident attrition." He added, "There will be few countermeasures. Even if military doctors and public health doctors are mobilized, their total number is around 2,000, and many of them are general practitioners who cannot replace residents in each specialty."

Jung Hyung-sun, professor of health administration at Yonsei University, said, "It is better not to proceed to license suspension if possible to avoid causing a medical service gap. During the residents' license suspension period, large hospitals will have no choice but to maintain the medical delivery system by only accepting severe and emergency patients." He continued, "Tertiary hospitals are originally medical institutions for severe and emergency patients, not for mild cases. After the residents' resignation crisis, a medical delivery system started to function where mild patients visit smaller hospitals instead of tertiary hospitals. Paradoxically, the residents' resignation and disciplinary actions should be used as an opportunity to normalize the medical delivery system."

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