Medical professors are set to reduce their working hours this week to cope with growing fatigue caused by a protracted walkout by junior doctors.
According to an emergency response committee for medical professors nationwide, the professors, who are senior doctors at major hospitals, will cut back their working hours starting Monday.
Lim Hyun-taek (C), the new chief of the Korean Medical Association, participates in the group’s meeting on March 31, 2024. (Yonhap)
“Although we have been treating patients without time constraints and reducing their numbers, it seems that we have reached our physical limits,” Bang Jae-seung, head of the committee, told a press conference Saturday. “We will readjust our work hours.”
Bang said a recent survey of a university hospital showed professors’ weekly work hours range from 60 to 98, and the committee has agreed professors will take daytime work hours off the day after working 24 consecutive hours.
Under the plan, professors will focus on treating seriously ill and em
ergency patients while scaling back surgeries and services for outpatients.
“We will faithfully treat urgent patients in order to fulfill our duty as doctors,” Bang said. “We are sorry that people’s inconveniences will grow but please understand it is a necessary measure for the safety of patients and medical staff.”
The move comes a week after a separate association of medical professors reduced their weekly work hours to 52. The association has also said its professors will minimize services for outpatients starting Monday in order to concentrate on seriously ill and emergency patients.
The Korean Medical Association, the biggest doctors’ group, said community doctors will start to work 40 hours per week in treating patients.
“The association should not force their participation, but as the issue has been already discussed, some of them can start immediately. As many members of the group have agreed that reducing weekly work hours (to 40 hours) is the most realistic option, more doctors are expected to
naturally join it,” said Prof. Kim Sung-geun, a new official in charge of the press at the group.
This photo, taken March 26, 2024, shows a sign about suspended treatments of outpatients at a general hospital in Seoul as medical professors have submitted resignations in their collective action to support junior doctors’ walkout. (Yonhap)
The health ministry said the government convened a response meeting led by Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong on Sunday and expressed “regret” over the planned reduction of work hours.
Cho instructed the government to more thoroughly check the operation of emergency rooms and intensive care units and to come up with stronger emergency response measures, the ministry said.
More than 90 percent of the country’s 13,000 trainee doctors have been on strike in the form of mass resignations since Feb. 20 to protest the government’s decision to increase the medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 seats from the current 3,058 starting next year.
The number of medical school students
who applied for a leave of absence while abiding by school rules rose 256 to a cumulative 10,242 as of Saturday, according to the education ministry. Medical students nationwide have filed for leave of absence to protest the government’s enrollment quota hike plan.
The protracted walkout has raised concerns that patients might not receive medical treatment at an appropriate time.
A 33-month-girl, who fell into a ditch and was found in a state of cardiac arrest, died Sunday after higher-level hospitals reportedly rejected a request by a lower-level hospital for her to be transferred for treatment.
The girl’s pulse came back for a moment after she received emergency treatment at a hospital in Boeun County, North Chungcheong Province. The hospital requested her transfer to nine general hospitals in other regions, but they are believed to have rejected the request, citing lack of medical beds. She died about 40 minutes after falling into cardiac arrest again.
Source: Yonhap News Agency