Patients suffer from shortage of doctors in emergency rooms nationwide after six months of doctors’ strike

A patient passes through an empty parking lot for ambulances in front of an emergency medical center of a university hospital in Seoul on September 3. Reporter Cho Tae-hyung

"I managed to get to this hospital after calling about 10 hospitals in an hour. It has been like this since the doctors’ strike, which caused the medical disruption, started."

A paramedic from Yeongdeungpo Fire Station, who barely transferred a patient to the regional emergency medical center at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul, on September 2 said, "After the strike of trainee doctors began, it has become difficult to find the emergency room, and it seems to be worse, especially for severe patients," adding, "Even urgent patients can't find the emergency room and end up in cardiac arrest."

One professor in charge currently works alone in the emergency room of the hospital. Originally, there were 25 doctors, including 13 trainee doctors and specialists, but now there are eight specialists who take turns seeing patients.

“There should be about five doctors who take care of patients at the same time, but now I‘m the only one,” said Namgoong In, an emergency medicine professor at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital, who stepped out of the emergency room for the first time that afternoon. ”Anyway, I’m responsible for the patients that come into the emergency room, but there are lots of unfortunate cases outside the hospital, such as the ambiguously critical patients who can‘t get treatment because hospitals won’t accept them.” The professor said he was taking charge of 15 beds by himself. Another hospital official also said, "The situation in the emergency room is serious. Professors are really barely holding out."

It has been more than six months since trainee doctors left their training hospitals in February in protest against the government‘s increase in the medical school admissions, leaving a growing medical disruption in the emergency rooms of many large hospitals across the country.

According to the data released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare on September 3, an analysis of the availability of follow-up treatment at regional and local emergency medical centers displayed on the central emergency medical center’s comprehensive situation board showed that 102 medical institutions were able to treat patients suffering from 27 diseases, which is seven fewer than usual.

In addition, when analyzing 180 emergency medical centers nationwide with institutions that can treat severe emergency conditions on the 2nd, comparing to normal days, the number of hospitals that can perform a chest aortic surgery decreased from 72 to 69, that of hospitals that can perform an infant intussusception and occlusion surgery decreased from 93 to 83.

In the case of infant endoscopy and obstetric emergency delivery, the number decreased from 15 to 14 and from 96 to 91, respectively.

In particular, patients' anxiety is inevitably greater in areas with low access to medical care. Jin Jae-won (45), who lives in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province, said, "There is no way to get local medical care. It is more anxious and difficult because there is no alternative."

In the online parenting communities, it was easy to find postings, saying, “Pediatric emergency rooms are closed. I finally found a hospital that accepted my 35-month-old child,” "My child’s fever went up to 39 degrees, but I couldn't take my child to a hospital because the emergency room was closed,” and “When I went to the emergency room at a university hospital, I was told that it would take about four to five hours to get treatment, but even while I was waiting, the medical staff came and told me to go to another hospital because they cannot see patients.” Kwon In-ho, a professor of emergency medicine at Dong-A University, said, "Our hospital is a regional emergency medical center with the largest number of paramedics in Busan, but we only have one specialist working right now. The situation is very bad." The hospital used to have at least seven or eight doctors, including trainee doctors, working in the emergency room, but now there is only one professor. Six professors are working three shifts on weekdays and two shifts on weekends, taking turns for 8 to 12 hours a day.

The National Medical University Professors' Emergency Response Committee issued an appeal to the Ministers of Health and Welfare and Education on September 3rd, saying, "The government's wrong policy of increasing the medical school admissions is now making Korea an underdeveloped country in medical treatment where obstetric delivery, pediatric emergency diseases, and cardiothoracic surgery emergency diseases are unable to be treated.”

“We do not believe that the situation has reached the point of emergency medical collapse as expressed by some,” the government said. Park Min-soo, the second vice minister of health and welfare, said at a briefing on the same day, "The number of emergency patients is gradually decreasing. We are reinforcing manpower by dispatching military and public health doctors and hiring supporting nurses to minimize the manpower gap."

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.