Government "Firm Commitment to Increase Staff by 2,000... Urges Medical School Professors to Withdraw Resignation Intent"

Park Min-su, Vice Minister of Welfare, "Structural Reform Toward Specialist-Centered Hospitals"

The government emphasized the necessity of expanding medical school quotas by 2,000 and demanded that medical school professors who expressed their intention to resign withdraw their resignations.

Park Min-su, Vice Minister of Health and Welfare.[Photo by Yonhap News]

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced this during a briefing of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (CDSCH) on doctors' collective action held at 11 a.m. that day. Park Min-su, the ministry’s 2nd Vice Minister, stated, "We will steadfastly implement the increase of 2,000 doctors, which is an essential requirement for medical reform," and added, "the government firmly believes that the increase in doctors should not be delayed any further."

He expressed concern over the Emergency Committee of the Seoul National University Medical School Professors' Association, who declared their intention to resign en masse. Vice Minister Park said, "We deeply regret and seriously worry about the fact that this could threaten patients' lives and health," and added, "Another collective resignation that endangers patients' lives would be difficult for the public to accept." He continued, "We trust the living conscience of the professor community and hope they will withdraw their collective resignation intention."

Earlier, the Emergency Committee of the Seoul National University Medical School Professors' Association had announced that they would submit resignation letters if the government did not come up with a reasonable solution regarding the collective resignation crisis of residents. After holding general meetings at Seoul National University Yeongeon Campus, Bundang Seoul National University Hospital, and Boramae Hospital the previous day, the committee stated, "If the government does not sincerely and reasonably resolve the situation, we will submit resignation letters starting from the 18th."

The government also stated it would continue communication with the medical community. Vice Minister Park said, "The minister had a private meeting with residents on the 11th, and I am scheduled to hold a meeting with emergency medical staff on the afternoon of the 12th."

He also shared plans to strengthen emergency medical response measures. Vice Minister Park said, "Military doctors and public health doctors dispatched to 20 medical institutions on the 11th have completed the necessary training for hospital work and will begin full duties starting the 13th," adding, "after deployment, we are matching and dispatching personnel who trained at the affiliated institutions to help them adapt as quickly as possible."

He continued, "More than 57% of the dispatched military doctors and public health doctors were trained at the hospitals where they are now assigned," and added, "We are considering additional deployment of military doctors and public health doctors based on the situation on the ground, and we will ensure substantial reinforcement of personnel by taking into account training institutions and clinical experience."

Cooperation between hospitals will also be strengthened. He said, "Through financial support for staffing hospital cooperation centers, we are facilitating smooth patient referrals and transfers between hospitals," and added, "To strengthen cooperation between hospitals for severe and emergency cerebrovascular disease patients, we have been conducting a pilot project for the 'Severe and Emergency Cerebrovascular Disease Medical Cooperation' network since last month, and on the 8th, we finalized the list of specialists participating in this project."

The resident protection and reporting center will begin operation from that day. If residents wish, they will be transferred to other training institutions, and psychological counseling services will be provided. The government operates two direct phone lines for reporting via calls or text messages, and plans to diversify reporting channels to include online submissions in the future.

The government will also pursue structural reforms to enable hospitals to be operated centered on specialists. Vice Minister Park said, "The proportion of residents in tertiary hospitals is about 40%, which is abnormal considering that in major countries like the U.S. and Japan, residents make up about 10%," and added, "We must completely reform the hospital operation structure that has used residents as cheap labor during training."

First, by strengthening specialist placement standards, the government will encourage hospitals to expand specialist employment. He said, "We will revise doctor placement standards when establishing medical institutions to count residents as half of specialists and employ more specialists," and added, "As a first step, we will expand the number of full-time professors at national university hospitals from the current 1,700 to over 1,000 more by 2027."

Additionally, the government announced plans to strengthen support for balanced development of clinical, research, and education functions at university hospitals through the introduction of the 'Korean-style ARPA-H' project, the promotion of the 'Boston Korea Project,' and improvements to the R&D personnel cost system.

The 'Specialist-Centered Hospital Transition Support Project' will also be promoted. Vice Minister Park said, "We will expand specialist employment, reduce tasks delegated to residents, and create a pilot project model to support task sharing among personnel, applying it mainly to national university hospitals and regional training hospitals from 2025," adding, "Along with this, we will improve the inpatient specialist system and expand the 'nurse-related pilot project' to support specialist-centered staffing." Furthermore, financial support necessary for specialist-centered hospital operation will be pursued simultaneously.

Meanwhile, according to the CDSCH, inpatient numbers at tertiary hospitals have decreased by about 40% compared to normal times, with a slight increase in recent inpatient numbers during the fourth week of collective action. Compared to the period from the 1st to the 7th of last month before the collective action, inpatient numbers dropped to 40.7% on the 4th but slightly recovered to a 37.7% decrease on the 11th. Surgeries at tertiary hospitals decreased by about 52.9% on the 11th compared to the 15th of last month. ICU admissions have remained stable at around 3,000 patients compared to normal times since the collective action began. Among 408 emergency rooms, 398 are operating without bed reductions. The number of mild to moderate emergency room patients decreased by about 10% on the 10th compared to the 3rd and 4th of last month before the collective action.

Some of the decrease in tertiary hospital care is understood to be handled by general hospitals. The number of patients at general hospitals has increased since the collective action began, and the government reports that inpatient numbers at general hospitals without residents have increased by up to 9% compared to before the collective action.

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