SEOUL: South Korea said on Monday it had started procedures to suspend the medical licences of 4,900 junior doctors who have resigned and stopped working to protest government medical training reforms, causing healthcare chaos.

The walkout, which started Feb 20, is over government plans to sharply increase the number of doctors, which it says is essential to combat shortages and serve South Korea’s rapidly ageing population. Medics argue the increase will erode service quality.

Nearly 12,000 junior doctors — 93 per cent of the trainee workforce — were not in their hospitals at the last count, despite government back-to-work orders and threats of legal action, forcing Seoul to mobilise military medics and millions of dollars in state reserves to ease the situation.

The health ministry said it had sent administrative notifications — the first step towards suspending medical licences — to thousands of trainee doctors after they defied specific orders telling them to return to their hospitals.

“As of March 8 (notifications) have been sent to more than 4,900 trainee doctors,” Chun Byung-wang, director of the health and medical policy division at the health ministry, told reporters.

The government has previously warned striking doctors that they face a three-month suspension of their licences, a punishment it says will delay by at least a year their ability to qualify as specialists. Chun urged the striking medics to return to their patients.

“The government will take into account the circumstance and protect trainee doctors if they return to work before the administrative measure is complete,” he said, indicating that doctors who come back to work now could avoid the punishment.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2024