Will Seoul address ‘thorny’ issue of healthcare reform as doctors protest for higher wages, lawsuit protection?

Low wages for doctors in the public sector and growing threats of lawsuits from patients have pushed doctors to more lucrative but low-risk specialities

Ahead of April elections, President Yoon Suk-yeol vowed not to back down and threatened to suspend licences and jail those defying orders to return to work

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Doctors rally against the government’s medical policy near the presidential office in Seoul. Photo: AP

Published: 8:00am, 28 Feb 2024Updated: 8:42am, 28 Feb 2024

An intensifying doctors’ strike in South Korea over a significant increase in medical college admission quotas is highlighting the need to reform the country’s public healthcare system, under which professionals in vital fields earn low wages, observers said.

Low wages for doctors in the public sector and growing threats of lawsuits from patients have pushed some doctors to switch to more lucrative but low-risk specialities such as dermatology and plastic surgery, resulting in understaffed vital public sector services.

“No politician has attempted to address these thorny issues including distorted payments under the healthcare system and protection of doctors from damage suits, kicking the can down the road,” Choi Jin, head of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership, told This Week in Asia.

He pointed out that such measures, which would require taxpayers’ dollars, would be unpopular.

Patients wait for treatment at a hospital in Gwangju. Most of the country’s 13,000 trainee doctors resigned or walked off the job over the past week, forcing hospitals to shelve surgeries or turn away some emergency patients. Photo: EPA-EFE

Most of the country’s 13,000 trainee doctors, including interns and residents, resigned or walked off the job over the past week, forcing hospitals to shelve surgeries or turn away some emergency patients.