S. Korea orders doctors to return to work

SEOUL — The South Korean government issued a return-to-work order for private practitioners on Tuesday, as more doctors including medical professors joined the monthslong strike to protest increasing medical school admissions.

About 4 percent of some 36,000 private clinics have notified the government of plans to be closed on Tuesday to take part in the protest, Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said.

"To minimize the medical gap, the return-to-work order will be issued at 9 am today," Cho said.

The government previously issued a return-to-work order to striking trainee doctors before withdrawing it earlier this month as an olive branch.

Under the law, doctors defying the return-to-work order can face suspension of their licenses or other legal repercussions.

President Yoon Suk-yeol said the doctors' strike was "regretful and disappointing".

The Korean Medical Association, or KMA, a critic of the government's reforms, was leading Tuesday's strike. The group also staged a protest in Seoul the same day, calling for reconsideration of increasing medical school admissions.

"The government should respect… all doctors in this land as lifesaving experts, not slaves, and listen to their voices," KMA President Lim Hyun-taek said.

Little impact on policy

Lee Ju-yul, professor of health administration at Namseoul University, believes that the medical strike led by the KMA will have little effect on changing the medical policy.

"However, the decision by professors at large university hospitals in (South) Korea … to stop providing medical treatment will have a significant impact on the country's medical system," Lee said.

The government has refused the KMA's demands, and is asking for a probe into the KMA and more than 1,000 doctors suspected of receiving illegal kickbacks from drugmakers.

Lee believed that the government announced the investigation as a way to pressure medical institutions from participating in the KMA's claims.

Meanwhile, the problem of illegal rebates by pharmaceutical companies continues to exist, he said.

From this perspective, the announcement of the investigation into illegal kickbacks by pharmaceutical companies may be seen as a "routine announcement", but it can also be seen as a timely means to put pressure on doctors in connection with the doctors' strike, Lee added.

A Seoul resident surnamed Lee told China Daily that he has not yet felt the direct impact of the doctors' walkout because nobody in his family is sick now. "But we did postpone our medical checkups and preventive medical treatments," he added.

Yang Han in Hong Kong contributed to this story.

Agencies Via Xinhua