Healthcare crisis threatens Yoon administration as medical workforce shortage escalates amid policy backlash < Policy < Article

The medical turmoil sparked by the policy to increase the medical school enrollment quota has also led to a growing sense of crisis within the government and the ruling party.

Some even predict that if the seven-month-long vacuum of trainee physicians leads to a healthcare collapse, it will be difficult to maintain the Yoon Suk Yeol administration. A poll also showed that President Yoon’s approval rating has recently fallen to 27 percent.

Kim Jong-in, the former head of the emergency committee of the ruling People Power Party (PPP), publicly warned Yoon and the party to remain alert to the current medical turmoil.

On Thursday, he appeared on a CBS radio show and recounted his struggle to find a doctor to treat him and called healthcare “the most important issue related to people’s lives.”

Kim said he had nowhere to go after paramedics called 22 emergency rooms to treat his lacerated forehead after a fall at dawn. Kim said he finally went to his regular hospital, but “there were no doctors there.”

Anyone who hasn’t experienced it cannot know, Kim added.

“Korea introduced the health insurance system in 1977, and this country’s healthcare system has been stable and efficient for 50 years. The medical system in Korea is the envy of the world,” Kim said. “A medical turmoil has occurred over the issue of increasing the number of medical students, which could eventually cause considerable damage to the medical system. If the medical system collapses, it will be difficult to maintain the regime itself.”

Kim continued, “I once told former President Chun Doo-hwan, ‘Why are you trying to do something you don’t know much about with confidence?’ Former President Chun retreated at that time, so there was no problem. Does President Yoon know enough about healthcare?”

Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, a PPP lawmaker, also warned of a medical collapse, saying, “There will be a chain of bankruptcies starting with rural medical centers.”

“There is a shortage of essential care doctors, and the government promised to reform healthcare to solve the problem of rural healthcare, but the exact opposite is happening,” Ahn said on a Wednesday SBS Radio talk show. “In February, when the idea of increasing the number of medical students by 2,000 came up, I said that in 10 years, there would be 2,000 new dermatology clinics in Seoul every year, and we are heading in that direction.”

Ahn cited what occurred at a joint hearing of the National Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee and the Education Committee on Friday last week.

“It was revealed that the government just pushed for 2,000 without properly preparing or elaborating on how many are needed,” Ahn said. “At this rate, next year, there will be nearly zero new doctors, no interns, no public health doctors, and no military doctors. The hospital system will collapse if there are no new doctors for the whole year.”

“The world-class Korean healthcare system built over the past few decades will completely crash to the ground,” the physician-turned-politician warned. “If we don’t solve this problem, it will be catastrophic.”

Rep. Ahn also warned other ruling party lawmakers.

“You think you must support the government’s policies unconditionally just because you are ruling party members, but that’s wrong,” he said, “Pointing out wrong policies and presenting better alternatives is the way to increase the government’s approval ratings in the long run and win public support.”