The health ministry said Thursday the government has extended the deployment of public health doctors and military surgeons at hospitals hit by the prolonged walkout of junior doctors protesting the medical school quota hike.

About 12,000 trainee doctors have been on strike in the form of mass resignations since Feb. 20, causing delays in medical treatments, with some emergency rooms partially limiting their treatment of critically ill patients.

The government deployed the first batch of 154 public health doctors and military surgeons to such strike-hit hospitals on March 11, with their term set to expire Sunday.

“We have extended the contracts of 110 public health doctors and military surgeons while replacing 44 others,” Deputy Health Minister Jun Byung-wang told reporters.

Jun added that the health ministry designated 47 partner hospitals specializing in cancer treatments so that patients treated at higher-tier general hospitals can be transferred for follow-up treatments.

The government is pushing to
increase the admission quota to address a shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas and essential medical fields, such as high-risk surgeries, pediatrics, obstetrics and emergency medicine.

But doctors argue the quota hike would compromise the quality of medical education and services and create a surplus of physicians, stating the government must devise ways of extending compensation to induce more physicians to practice in such “unpopular” areas.

Source: Yonhap News Agency