SEOUL – Thousands of South Korean doctors held a mass rally on March 3 against government plans to increase medical school admissions.

They defied official calls for trainee physicians who had also walked off the job in protest to return to work.

Up to 40,000 doctors joined the rally, demanding the government scrap the plan, according to the Korean Medical Association (KMA), which represents private practitioners and had organised the protest.

Police put the number of demonstrators at about 12,000.

About 70 per cent of South Korea’s 13,000 trainee doctors have walked out in the past two weeks over the government’s planned initiative.

The authorities argue that the number of medical students has not been raised for about three decades, and that South Korea now has one of the most acute doctor shortages in the developed world amid a rapidly ageing population.

The KMA led the rally, with its leaders speaking on the podium and vowing to refuse talks until President Yoon Suk-yeol’s government backs down.

The authorities have threatened to arrest and prosecute people who refuse to comply with a government order to return to work.

The government is looking at suspending licences of doctors who encouraged the labour action that it says defies medical regulations and violates the law.

Dr Joo Soo-ho, an official at the KMA, said the government should reform the existing medical system first before raising medical school quotas.

“It was the government that set the deadline, and regardless of the deadline and pressure, we will continue to push forward as we think,” Dr Joo said.

South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said on March 3 that the administration will “go ahead and implement its duty” if doctors stayed off the job in violation of the law, Yonhap news agency reported. It was not clear what that would entail.

Mr Yoon has stood firm on the plan to add 2,000 spaces in medical schools from 3,058 now.

His administration has indicated willingness to discuss doctors’ concerns such as low pay and long hours for trainees, and revisions to the legal system for malpractice suits.

It said the walkout has led to people being turned away from understaffed emergency rooms and the cancellation of about half of surgical operations.

Mr Yoon’s approval rating climbed to 39 per cent in a weekly tracking poll released on March 1 from Gallup Korea, the highest since July 2023, indicating broad support among the public for his stance to hold firm.

This could help his conservative People Power Party in April elections as it tries to take control of Parliament from the progressive Democratic Party. 

Critics of the walkout contend that doctors participating in the labour action are more keen on protecting their earning power, which ranks near the top among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, rather than improving the quality of the healthcare system.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG