Seoul, June 17 (EFE).- Teaching specialists from one of the main hospitals in South Korea joined the strike that the country’s resident doctors have been carrying out for months in protest against the Government’s reform plans.
A patient association indicated that 55% of teaching specialists associated with Seoul National University (SNU) Hospital will join the strike.
This will mean that more than 500 of these specialists from the SNU Hospital and three other associated centers located in the capital region will join the strike starting today.
However, emergency services and treatments for critically ill patients will not be affected, the Yonhap agency has indicated, citing hospital sources.
According to these sources, treatments will only be suspended for patients who can receive care at other hospitals or whose conditions are not negatively affected by “a temporary delay in treatment.”
These specialists thus join the strike that thousands of doctors residing in South Korea have been carrying out since February in protest against the Government’s reform plan, which decided to increase the maximum annual quota in medical schools by 2,000 – currently at 3,058 per year. year – to address the shortage of doctors, especially in rural areas and in certain specialties.
The strike announcement by SNU teaching specialists comes a day before many family doctors associated with South Korea’s main group, the Korean Medical Association (KMA), stage a one-day strike on Tuesday to protest the mentioned reform. EFE
asb/ahg/jac
(photo) (video)
