A South Korean woman tragically died after 92 hospitals refused to admit her during a major holiday, highlighting the devastating impact of a months-long doctors’ strike. - Photo: Image composite by South China Morning Post
SEOUL: A South Korean woman has become the latest casualty of a months-long strike by doctors after first responders called 92 times and failed to find a hospital that could admit her for a serious heart condition during a major holiday.
The government told an opposition lawmaker on Monday that the victim, suffering from multiple cardiac arrests, was unconscious when emergency personnel arrived at her Busan home last Tuesday.
Paramedics contacted 10 hospitals, but none had doctors qualified to treat her during Chuseok, one of South Korea’s biggest holidays.
A medical centre finally agreed to admit the patient in her 30s, even though it lacked the resources to carry out complex neurosurgical procedures.
The woman received CPR at the hospital, which temporarily improved her condition. But, she needed care at a larger facility. Emergency workers contacted several larger hospitals, but they declined the request, citing a shortage of doctors.
Such cases are not new in South Korea these days. In February this year, South Korea's government has launched an investigation into the death of a woman in her 80s after her ambulance was denied entry to several hospitals due to the ongoing doctors strike.
The patient died in the ambulance after suffering cardiac arrest. Paramedics in the city of Daejon had called around seven hospitals to take the woman, but were turned away due to a lack of staffing and beds.
She was eventually admitted to a public university hospital 67 minutes after she first called for help, but was pronounced dead on arrival.
It is believed to be the first death linked to the doctor strikes, where interns and residents are protesting government plans to add more doctors due to competition fears.
Emergency rooms have been under significant pressure with low staffing levels. Surgeries have been postponed and patients have had to be transferred to other hospitals, local media report.
More than 9,000 doctors have refused to come into work, while about 10,000 have submitted resignations at hundreds of hospitals across the country.
Interns and residents make up rank and file staffing in emergency wards so their absence has been widely felt, with hospitals having to operate on contingency settings, officials say. The country last week put the healthcare system at the highest crisis level.
The protests have escalated into a tense political stand-off, with officials threatening legal action.
South Korea on Thursday also declared a special emergency medical response period for two weeks in September and said it would use all available resources to ensure services, as a strike by young doctors increases strains on the medical system.
The government will also temporarily raise the fees doctors receive from health insurance around a national holiday period next week to “repay the dedication of the medical professionals even a little,” Prime Minister Han Duck-soo told a televised briefing.
This includes raising by 3.5 times the examination fees specialist doctors receive at regional emergency medical centers, responsible for severe emergency patients, Han said.
South Korea’s health ministry said last week it was deploying military doctors to assist in some hospital emergency rooms due to a shortage of medical staff, but disputed a warning by some physicians that the system was on the verge of collapse.
Thousands of trainee doctors, including interns and resident doctors, walked off the job in February to protest a plan to lift medical student numbers by 2,000 a year to meet what the government projects will be a severe shortage of doctors.
Hospitals that had relied on trainee doctors across multiple medical disciplines have had to turn away patients at emergency rooms, citing a shortage of staff, while existing doctors have experienced heavier workloads, the government said.
“Many of the remaining people are complaining of fatigue. However... we are by no means in a situation where we have to worry about medical collapse,” Han said.
About 8,000 medical clinics and hospitals will be open nationwide daily during next week’s Chuseok, one of South Korea’s largest holidays, Han said.
This compares with about 3,600 clinics and hospitals that opened per day during lunar New Years’ holidays earlier this year, he added.
Han also urged the public to go to local clinics depending on severity of symptoms instead of flocking to large hospitals during the holidays.
Yonhap reported on Thursday that the number of emergency room doctors has dropped 42% in 53 hospitals surveyed nationwide, with seven of the hospitals considering partial closure of emergency rooms, citing a medical professors’ association.
Korean Medical Association spokesperson Choi Anna announces the release of a joint statement from eight medical associations on the government's proposal to form a consultative group for negotiations.- PHOTO: YONHAP/ THE KOREA HERALD/ANN
Meanwhile, the Korea Herald reported that, the medical community Friday said it will not be participating in any multilateral dialogue with political parties and the government, amid the ongoing standoff against the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s plan to hike the medical school admissions quota.
Choi Anna, a spokesperson for the Korean Medical Association, said, “We believe that it is premature to participate in the bipartisan consultative body at this point in time since there has been no change in the government’s attitude,” at a briefing on the medical sector’s joint position toward the proposed consultative group on the medical crisis on Friday.
A total of eight associations, including the Korean Medical Association, the Medical Professors Association of Korea, the Korea Association of Medical Colleges, the Korean Academy of Medical Sciences, the National Emergency Committee for Medical Professors and the Medical Association Delegates’ Council joined together to release their official position.
Before any possible dialogue, Choi called for the government to stop investigating residents and interns who resigned en masse in February, and to stop trying to force through a quota increase for 2025.
“The situation cannot be resolved unless the government admits its wrong policies,” Choi said. “The agreements that the medical community made with the government have never been kept, and we have requested improvements in various aspects, such as regarding problems with health care in regions and with sectors that are unpopular, but the government has not accepted them,” she added.
“We hope that the people will call on the government to (first) stop its unreasonable policies and (then actually) talk to doctors,” she noted, emphasizing that the government should stop its rhetoric and show forward-looking change first.
The government and the main rival political parties have been calling for doctors’ participation in a consultative body to negotiate with doctors’ groups in an attempt to resolve Korea’s months-long standoff in the medical sector, which began after the government announced a plan to increase the medical school admissions quota by 2,000 places, leading to the mass resignations of 10,000 interns and residents in February. - Agencies
