SEOUL - Mr Kim Sung-ju was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer 10 years ago.

The cancer has affected his vocal cords and he cannot speak for long periods of time.

Yet, as the stand-off between junior doctors and the South Korean government over plans to expand medical school enrolment approaches the one-month mark, he felt compelled to speak up for patients caught in the middle.

“The government and the Korean Medical Association keep issuing statements that shift responsibility to each other. Meanwhile, we patients are the ones who have to endure pain and sacrifice in this game of chicken between the two parties,” said Mr Kim, who chairs the Korea Cancer Patients Rights Council.

He and a few other members of the Korea Severe Disease Association held a press conference on March 19 to urge the government and doctors to “stop fighting on the bodies of dying patients”.

Calling the impasse an “unbelievable situation” that puts to shame South Korea’s reputation for top-notch medical services, Mr Kim said the situation was getting out of hand.

Thousands of trainee doctors across South Korea have gone on strike since Feb 20 in protest against the government’s plan; both sides have refused to give way, even as public anxiety grows.

The government has moved to suspend the medical licences of doctors who refused to comply with its order to return to work. Meanwhile, a group of medical professors, who are also senior doctors in hospitals, have thrown their support behind their juniors and threatened to resign en masse by March 25 if Seoul does not back down from its plan to boost medical school admissions.

A Gallup Korea poll released on March 15 found public anxiety growing, with 69 per cent of respondents worried about the availability of emergency medical services. Support for the government’s stance had previously stood at 76 per cent, but the March 15 poll found that 49 per cent of respondents are unhappy with its handling of the stand-off. 

Seoul insists that more doctors are needed to care for South Korea’s fast-ageing population and plans to increase medical school places by 2,000 from 3,058, starting in 2025.

Doctors opposed to the plan argue that there are enough doctors, and that having more will undermine the quality of medical education and lead to higher medical costs for patients. They want the government to address the low pay and long working hours of trainee doctors, and improve the distribution of doctors across different specialisations.

However, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol reiterated on March 19 that his government would not back down as the medical reform is “our duty to the people, as well as the people’s command”.

The allocation of school places across the medical schools in the country is set to be announced later this week. Up to 80 per cent of the additional places are expected to go to provinces outside Seoul, as part of a push to diffuse the concentration of medical care in the capital. 

Since the mass walkout by about 90 per cent of 13,000 trainee doctors, hospitals have had to postpone treatments and surgical operations except for emergency and critical cases.

The government has deployed public health and military hospital personnel to help bridge the staffing gap.

Mr Kim said: “Currently, the medical system is barely functioning with such bare crews. If even full-time doctors and professors resign from the hospital, where on earth can we patients go? We fear illness, but what terrifies us more now is the government that is abandoning us and the doctors whom we had trusted to cure us.”

He receives five to six phone calls a day on average from cancer patients frantic about their treatments being suspended and fearful that their conditions might worsen. 

“Both the government and the medical community are saying that their stances are for the good of the public. But I have yet to see either side being compassionate to the patients, putting themselves in the shoes of these sick people and their families, and understanding the level of their anxiety right now.”

Mr Kim Tae-hyun, president of the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Federation, spoke through a proxy at the press conference as his voice was too weak to be heard.

“I don’t know how it has come to this, but it is shameful and sad that someone like me, with only three years to live, is here pleading and begging to be saved,” said Mr Kim, who uses a wheelchair and was diagnosed with the fatal motor neuron disease in 2004.

While his condition is beyond cure, he urged doctors not to forget the Hippocratic Oath that they had taken, and to return to work to save patients with severe illnesses.

Mr Baek Min-hwan, whose wife was diagnosed with multiple myeloma or cancer of the plasma cells in 2008, urged doctors “to remember why they became doctors in the first place”. Mr Baek, who heads the Korea Myeloma Patient Group, added: “Both sides need to meet and speak to each other, achieve a resolution.”