Amid protests from doctors, South Korea’s emergency rooms turn away patients.

A remarkable turn of events has occurred: thousands of trainee doctors are staging a strike in protest against government plans to expand medical school enrollment, and as a result, South Korea’s leading hospitals have stopped surgeries and refused access to patients in need of emergency care.

Important Information:

• Major hospitals are restricting emergency services; some are only taking instances of cardiac arrest, such as the Asan Medical Center in Seoul.
• In response to government plans to boost the number of medical students, more than 7,800 doctors have resigned as a result of the strike.
• The government wants to alleviate the lack of healthcare workers by increasing the number of medical students admitted to 5,000 by 2025 and then to 10,000 by 2035.
• There are already enough doctors, according to protesters, who also want improved compensation and working conditions.
• The public supports the government’s plan because South Korea now has a lower doctor-to-population ratio than its OECD counterparts.
• Protests continue despite government instructions to return to work, prompting threats of potential legal action against organizers.

Authorities demand that patient care be prioritized and threaten to take protest organizers to court, so the situation is still heated. There is a division in public opinion, which reflects worries about access to healthcare in light of the ongoing demonstrations.