After a 12-hour shift at Seoul National University (SNU) Hospital, Nguyen hurriedly eats a bowl of rice then stays up late into the night to finish his homework.
This has been her routine for three weeks, and since arriving in South Korea in 2022, Nguyen said she has never been so busy or so stressed.
At the university hospital, doctor Luong Pham Hanh Nguyen, 36, was tasked with attending examinations, recording medical histories and participating in consultations.
His schedule and activities used to be stable, usually starting from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a one-hour lunch break. Then she had the whole evening to herself.
But since February 20, when a collective strike by resident doctors began, the SNU, one of the most prestigious medical establishments in the country, has been among the most affected. It is a renowned teaching hospital that combines patient care and treatment with the training of resident doctors.
For almost a month, resident doctors and interns have left their jobs, leaving all their work to others.
Nowadays, it is normal for Nguyen to work non-stop for 15 to 16 hours.
She skips lunch more often and is given tasks she has never done before. There is no choice: it must be available otherwise the patients will not be treated.
“This is now a common situation for doctors in my department: overworked. There are professors who, even if they are sick, still try to come to work because if they take a break, there will be no no one to care for patients,” Nguyen said. .
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Doctor Luong Pham Hanh Nguyen from Seoul National University Hospital in South Korea. Photo courtesy of Luong Pham Hanh Nguyen |
Currently, the conflict between the government and the striking doctors has become more tense when the authorities began taking a series of administrative measures on March 4 to suspend the strikers’ permits.
These measures include sending officials to confirm strikers’ absences, sending notices of planned suspensions and giving them an opportunity to respond before the license suspensions take effect. Officials said striking doctors would face license suspensions of at least three months and prosecutions, according to P.A..
So far, no suspensions have been reported yet.
On Wednesday, more than 90% of the country’s 13,000 trainee doctors walked off the job in a wave of mass resignations to protest the government’s decision to increase enrollment in medical schools.
In early February, the South Korean government announced it would increase the country’s medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 starting next year, from the current cap of 3,058, unchanged since 2006.
According to the government, the country has one of the lowest doctor-to-population ratios among developed countries, indicating the need to recruit more health professionals to address the persistent shortage of doctors in rural areas and in crucial but underpaid medical fields.
However, doctors say new graduates are likely to seek employment in the capital region and in lucrative specialties such as plastic surgery and dermatology, further saying the government’s strategy could lead to doctors offering unnecessary procedures due to increased competition.
Their walkouts now threaten to enter a critical phase as the chief doctors of the SNU and its affiliated hospitals decided on March 11 to resign en masse if the government does not propose measures to resolve the conflict by beginning of next week. Chief medical officers at other major teaching hospitals could take similar steps.
“If the government does not take sincere and reasonable measures to resolve the problem, we will decide to submit our resignations starting March 18,” said Bang JaeSeung, head of the Seoul Hospital Emergency Committee. P.A. reported.
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South Korean doctors protest against the government’s plan to increase the annual enrollment quota in medical schools in Seoul, March 3, 2024. Photo AFP |
At Seoul University Bundang Hospital, Dr. Nguyen Hai Dang (name changed) from the Department of Surgery was also affected by the crisis.
Having spent two months in South Korea, Dang was eager to learn and gain as much clinical experience as possible from doctors here. However, after many medical staff at Bundang Hospital went on strike, the training process changed.
Dang says the influx of patients in Bundang remains high, but due to the lack of personnel needed to assist during an operation, professors have not been able to perform many surgeries.
Previously, the surgery department performed an average of 30 to 40 surgical procedures per day, spread across three to four operating rooms.
Today, the number of surgeries has fallen to just two to three per day. More specialized departments like neurosurgery do not perform any surgical procedures.
As a result, Dang did not have the chance to practice on a patient in a real situation.
Dang said that if the hospital was operating normally, “I could have helped teachers prepare medical records, consult, assist in surgery, among other tasks,” adding that he now feels “disappointed and unhappy.” .
Despite what they are currently experiencing, Nguyen and Dang said they understand their colleagues’ decision to strike.
Nguyen said most striking doctors work between 80 and 100 hours a week. Sometimes they only go home for about two hours, then return to the hospital and continue working the next morning. They are usually “very tired and stressed.”
Nguyen Phuong Thuy, a doctoral student at the Department of Microbiology – Immunology at SNU Hospital School of Medicine, agrees.
She said South Korea often lacks doctors in key specialties, also known as attending physicians. Medical school graduates tend to choose dermatology and cosmetic surgery, which offer lighter workloads and higher salaries.
Therefore, if the number of doctors is increased, competition in these sectors will be even greater, but essential specialties will still suffer from a shortage of doctors.
Faced with this reality, striking doctors expect the government to increase benefits for essential health workers and increase investment in modern equipment and machinery for public hospitals instead of creating a rush for ” fashionable sectors”.
The South Korean government has decided to provide 94.8 billion won ($72.2 million) to public hospitals this year to address the prolonged labor shortage.
The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs on Wednesday called on medical professors not to resign, adding that the government was ready to negotiate to resolve the crisis.
In the meantime, Nguyen and Dang encourage each other every day to study and research diligently, sacrificing their time and effort to support their hospitals.
“If I also take leave, who will treat the patients?” Nguyen said, expressing hope that his colleagues will return to work quickly and that the South Korean government will make decisions to redress the situation, so that patients will not be affected.
The medical community’s objections have not aroused public sympathy. Critics say doctors, who are among the highest paid in South Korea, are mainly concerned about the potential decline in their future income.
