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A message from the Korea Intern Resident Association, which is staging a collective strike by medical workers, is displayed at the entrance of the Catholic University of Korea Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital on Aug. 27. (Kim Hye-yun, staff photographer)

After South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) ordered 358 medical trainees to return to their jobs in emergency rooms and intensive care units (ICUs) in the Seoul region on the morning of Aug. 27, many trainees retaliated by submitting group resignations. The South Korean government and the Korean Intern Resident Association (KIRA) are ratcheting up pressure on each other as doctors to push the government to scrap a planned expansion of admission quotas at medical schools.

After reviewing the situation at 165 of 200 teaching hospitals on Thursday, the government determined that 6,070 interns and residents (68.8%) and 549 practicing doctors (28.1%) had taken part in the collective strike. Following an on-the-ground survey of 20 hospitals in the Seoul Capital Area (SCA), MOHW issued individual back-to-work orders to 358 medical trainees and practicing doctors who remained off the job even after the government ordered them to immediately return to work at 8 am on Wednesday.

Emergency room residents and interns who receive individual orders are required to show up for work within an hour of receiving the order, while those at ICUs are required to return by 9 am of the following day. Under the Medical Service Act, medical trainees who disobey a back-to-work order can face a prison sentence of up to 3 years and a fine of as much as 30 million won (US$25,345).

Medical trainees and some practicing doctors responded by submitting collective letters of resignation or by turning off their mobile phones to block delivery of the back-to-work order. KIRA announced on Thursday that it was initiating “collective action by young doctors,” encouraging willing members to submit letters of resignation.

The entire team of medical trainees in the department of emergency medicine at Yonsei University’s Severance Hospital in Seoul submitted their resignations to the hospital administration, and a significant number of medical trainees at Chung-Ang University Hospital and Korea University Ansan Hospital have also reportedly drafted letters of resignation.

“Since precedent shows that submitting a letter of resignation is an example of collective action, back-to-work orders can also be issued in such a case,” said Kim Hyeon-sook, chief of healthcare resource policy at MOHW.

But late in the afternoon on Thursday, MOHW abruptly shelved a plan to file criminal complaints with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency against medical trainees who had disobeyed the back-to-work order. “Since we’re still listening to the viewpoints of respected figures in the medical field through various channels, we’ll announce the schedule for filing the criminal complaints at a later point,” MOHW said.

The government announced that 2,926 of 32,787 medical clinics (8.9%) had closed their doors as of noon on Thursday as part of the second phase of a medical strike initiated the previous day. Busan and Gyeonggi Province were among four metropolitan cities and provinces that issued back-to-work orders on their own prerogative.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in castigated the doctors’ strike during a meeting with church leaders on Thursday. “For medical workers to walk off the job during the COVID-19 crisis is equivalent to soldiers deserting the battlefield in the middle of a war,” he said.

By Hwang Ye-rang and Seong Yeon-cheol, staff reporters

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