More patients transferred amid unresolved medical standoff

A patient is being moved by an emergency medical technician outside of a Seoul-based hospital on Aug.6. (Yonhap)

Government data showed Friday that patient transfers at major hospitals from February to May increased 17.2 percent on-year, amid the mass walkout of trainee doctors across the country since February due the government's announcement of its plan to raise the medical school admissions quota.

During this period, there were 289,952 cases in which the patient was sent to a tertiary hospital and then transferred to another medical facility, up from 247,465 in the same period the year before, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare data presented by Rep. Jin Sun-mi of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea.

Tertiary hospitals, designated by the government under Article 3-4 of the Medical Service Act, refer to general hospitals with advanced capacities such as having at least 20 specialized departments prescribed by Ordinance of the Ministry of Health and Welfare and specialists exclusively dedicated to each department. The ministry's data indicates that even the country's biggest hospitals have been short of staff during the standoff in the medical sector.

The South Korean government has been at loggerheads with the medical community since February, over its plan to increase the enrollment quota for medical schools. The confrontation led to the mass resignation of trainee doctors, with medical professors joining their walkout since June.

"The Yoon Suk Yeol administration's unilateral approach to hiking the enrollment at medical schools led to doctors abandoning their posts, resulting in more patients being forced to be moved to other hospitals," Jin said. "Patients are suffering from the staff shortage at tertiary hospitals, and there need to be measures to address this issue."

The Health Ministry in February, on the coattails of the junior doctors' walkout, launched a hotline for complaints related to the walkout. Of the calls made, 849 reported direct damage from the trainee doctors' resignations, and 490 were related to delays in getting surgery.

Delays in receiving treatment have even led to deaths, in cases of emergency patients. Last week, a truck driver in his 60s was severely injured at a construction site at Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province. But the ambulance carrying him could not find a hospital to give him emergency surgery for him for over an hour. During this time, the patient's condition steadily worsened, and he was pronounced dead shortly after an emergency room finally took him in.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)