2024-07-08 18:41:20
Hundreds of patient rights advocates in South Korea have gathered to call on the country’s doctors to end a strike that potentially affects healthcare services. public health.
Since February, thousands of medical practitioners have walked off the job in protest against the government’s plan to increase dues of medical schools, arguing that it would affect negatively the quality of specialized education.
As a result of the protests, hospitals are experiencing delays in the scheduled treatments, in addition to having the need for cancel some important treatments such as chemotherapy.
A group of around 300 protesters They gathered in the capital to call for an end to the strike and to request laws to prevent such labor actions.
The organizers of the motion stated that they “cannot bear the harm and continued anxiety any longer,” and stressed that “medical services for patients should not be suspended under no circumstance”.
In protest, Kim Jeong-ae, the father of a patient with the syndrome, shaved his head while questioning: Would you do this if the patients were your children? Jeong-ae also accused health personnel of using patients as “pawns”.
Three months after the medical strike began, the South Korean government approved an increase of approximately 1,500 places in medical schools by 2025, saying the move would address a shortage of doctors and a rapidly aging population.
Specialist doctors, professors from major medical institutions in Korea and staff from other medical centers, suspended outpatient treatments and non-urgent surgeries in solidarity with the indefinite strike.
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2024-07-08 18:41:20