South Korea doctors ask ILO to intervene in dispute as Yoon uses issue to 'win votes'

South Korea's trainee doctors have asked the International Labor Organization to intervene in their stand-off with the government, claiming the back-to-work orders imposed on them constitute a breach of international norms against forced labour.

The move comes as the protracted government-physicians confrontation intensifies, with medical professors threatening to resign en masse in a show of support for junior doctors and medical students receiving notices of failure amid widening class boycotts.

"Sadly, I don't see any prospect of this dispute being settled in the foreseeable future," Professor Park In-sook of the University of Ulsan College of Medicine told This Week in Asia.

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More than 10,000 trainees - accounting for some 93 per cent of their total number - have remained off the job since they resigned en masse on February 20, over what they say is a "unilateral" decision by the government to increase the number of annual enrolments at medical schools from around 3,000 to 5,000, effective next year.

President Yoon Suk-yeol's administration is standing by the plan it says is essential for providing care in the rapidly ageing nation, and polling shows the public supports the idea. The number of medical school seats has not risen for nearly three decades.

But opponents say structural issues concerning long hours and pay, a dearth of physicians in vital fields, and a concentration of doctors in urban areas mean increasing the number of trainee doctors would not improve the situation.

Trainee doctors, who work up to 80 hours a week earning average wages of 3 million won (US$2,275) a month, play crucial roles at the country's major hospitals, particularly in emergency and acute healthcare duties. Their absences have led hospitals to turn away some patients from emergency rooms and postpone less urgent surgeries.

The Korean Intern and Resident Association (KIRA) on Thursday said it had sent a letter to the ILO requesting "urgent intervention" into what it called "forced labour" imposed on the doctors who had voluntarily submitted their resignations and left their hospitals.

The government had "recklessly" issued a spate of administrative orders restricting people's basic rights, such as orders to resume work, prohibit hospitals from accepting their resignations, maintain essential medical care and ban collective actions, it said.

The government had also sent out advance notices of the impending suspension of doctors' licences and threatened criminal prosecutions, including arrests, KIRA said in the letter.

"The government should immediately stop using the state authority to intimidate doctors and force them to work," Park Dan, head of KIRA's emergency committee, told journalists on Thursday.

In 2015, South Korea's National Assembly passed a law stating that junior doctors could work up to a maximum of 80 hours a week, to improve their working conditions, but according to KIRA said this rule had not been followed.

"We have continuously called for improving the working environment of medical residents, but the government has turned a blind eye," it said.

The situations now threatens to enter a critical phase, as senior doctors at the elite Seoul National University Hospital and its affiliated hospitals on Monday said they would resign en masse unless the government came up with measures to settle the dispute by early next week. Senior doctors at other major university hospitals are moving to follow suit.

Physicians assert the government's back-to-work order for trainees breaches a person's right to start or quit a job on their free will, and accuse officials of forcing doctors to stay at work without convincing evidence that the country is facing a medical crisis, a condition that may justify such an order.

"This kind of unilateral actions by the government are only thinkable under dictatorial regimes," Professor Park said.

The government refutes the claim, arguing that doctors' massive resignation amounts to endangering the existence or the well-being of the whole or part of the population.

Vice-Health Minister Park Min-soo on Thursday urged senior doctors who also served as medical college professors to help persuade trainee doctors to return to work, warning they would otherwise further antagonise the people as a vast majority of the people are against the walkout.

"Protecting patient lives is a professional and ethical calling and legal responsibility as a physician," he said.

The minister insisted, however, the government would not budge on raising the university placements from some 2,000 to more than 5,000 a year.

He stressed the government had never negotiated with a particular profession over quotas, no matter whether they were lawyers, accountants, pharmacists or nurses.

President Yoon on Tuesday said the government should never yield to pressure, and told his secretaries to "push through with the medical reform expediently as the principles dictate".

Observers said the confrontation would last at least until the end of the April 10 parliamentary elections, as Yoon's ruling conservative People Power Party puts forward the medical reform as a main policy ahead of the vote.

"The ruling party apparently believes that the government taking a firm stance in this confrontation with physicians is helpful for it to win more votes in the elections," said Jung Suk-koo, a former executive editor of the independent Hankyoreh newspaper, told This Week in Asia.

Yoon's approval rating has climbed during the walkout to its highest since July last year. This could help his party in next month's crucial polls as it tries to take control of parliament from the progressive Democratic Party.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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