SEOUL, March 4 (Reuters) - South Korea’s government will take steps to suspend the medical licenses of some 7,000 trainee doctors who have walked off the job and ignored a back-to-work order, a vice health minister said on Monday.
This is the entire news article. The doctors were protesting because the government is increasing the cost of tuition.
The bigger context for this story is that South Korea give striking doctors an ultimatum - return to work or face having medical licenses revoked. With thousands now facing license revocation in order to continue protesting overwork and low wages in the country’s largely private healthcare system. Despite being well paid, junior doctors often work up to 100 hours a week, resulting in them making less than minimum wage. Increasing the amount of doctors won’t fix the structural issues of for-profit healthcare.
I just don’t get this protest. It’s so obviously not going to be popular amongst the population and what they’re protesting could very well help solve their grievance. If there are more doctors the need to work 100 hour weeks will drop and then their pay matches the effort again. Sure there might be risk of their wages dropping with more doctors saturating the market but that’s not guaranteed and a good way to combat that is to collectively agree to not accept lowered pay and strike if it becomes reality. That strike would also garner much more sympathy than this one.
Withholding labor is the only power the working class have. You don’t strike to garner sympathy from fellow working people, if the solidarity isn’t there playing nice with the owning class will not build it.
Sure, but at least they should have chosen a better timing and not call out the increase in admissions to doctors programs. Since they did the government has support in revoking licenses, something they never would have if the protest was only against the working conditions. As it is now they’re protesting something that has been put forth as a solution.
Paraphrasing a comment I read:
‘Think of the food supply, we have a surplus supply of food but still people go hungry. Increasing the supply further does nothing to address the underlying issue.’
The issue in South Korea is cosmetic doctors make 2 to 3 times more than those in fields deemed necessary, which the government sets caps on. This means fields deemed necessary are understaffed. The governments current plan in to try and flood the cosmetic labor field to bring down those incomes and force people to work in the needed fields. It’s a stupid approach because they aren’t able to say what the true issue is, and as such will never actually address the problem.
The issue is that privatized for profit healthcare does not create conditions where people can work reasonable hours. Striking is basically the only option people have here.
Not arguing against that. But the optics of doing this strike now and dragging in the decision to increase admissions to doctors programs are absolutely horrible and is the reason this protest is so unpopular and the governments very stern reaction accepted.
I’m not sure what alternative you’re proposing that’s available to people being exploited working 100 hour weeks.
It’s complicated by the fact that SK has some of the highest patient to doctor ratios in the developed world. They sorely need more doctors, especially as their population continues to age.
An ideal solution, in my mind, would have been to offer the doctors pay increases alongside the increased admissions. As it is now, to the doctors, the increased admissions can’t seem to be anything other than downward pressure on wages.
However, right wing governments rarely give any concessions to organized labor, regardless of the consequences, which I fear in this case may be quite dire, as the strikes were highly concentrated, especially in Seoul.
I’m usually more supportive of labor protests but it’s hard to see the strike aimed at blocking this legislation as anything but selfish.
Are there details about them demanding labor concessions in exchange for this bill or is it simply “no more new doctors”?
Ah yes, people being forced to work 100 hour weeks are selfish. That’s totally the problem here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/overworked-unheard-south-korean-doctors-mass-walkout-say-2024-02-26/
Nice. This should have no repercussions.
Based, the doctors are being unreasonable, protesting government plans to train 10000 more doctors to join a sector that is stretched very thin is a very selfish move. professional associations that try to block common good policies should be dismantled.
