SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
South Korea has a highly regarded health care system - universal health insurance, where patients pay a fraction of what treatment costs in the U.S. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Seoul that all of that's at risk now that a strike by medical interns and residents nears its seven-month mark.
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: As South Korea prepares to celebrate the Chuseok mid-autumn festival, the government has deployed military doctors to keep hospital emergency rooms up and running. Earlier this month, Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo rejected claims that the country's health care system is on the verge of collapse.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PARK MIN-SOO: (Through interpreter) Some people worry that emergency rooms will soon close. But the government will minimize inconvenience by keeping hospitals on duty during the holiday and increasing reimbursements to hospitals.
KUHN: But Kim Kyo-woong, head of a council of delegates of the main doctors' group, the Korean Medical Association, told reporters last month that things are worse than they appear.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KIM KYO-WOONG: (Speaking Korean).
KUHN: "The medical system is falling apart," he argued. "The president says emergency rooms are operating normally, but they're being maintained only because patients are not going there."
Thousands of trainee doctors walked off the job in February, protesting the government's plan to increase medical school enrollment quotas. South Korea's government says the country needs more doctors to care for its rapidly aging population. The doctors say South Korea doesn't need more of them. They just need more pay and better working conditions.
Many doctors who aren't on strike are exhausted, and emergency rooms have had to turn away patients without life-threatening ailments. One of them is Suh Yi-seul. Her 11-year-old son, Kai, suffers from a rare blood vessel disease called Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome. It's painful and makes one of his legs swell. Suh says her son needs a biopsy, but hospitals have repeatedly put it off since February.
SUH YI-SEUL: (Through interpreter) Even if we do the biopsy now, we won't get the results before next spring. And my child will keep feeling pain in the meantime. He gets cellulitis every time the seasons change. And the difference in the length and thickness of his legs keeps growing.
KUHN: Suh has advocated for her son, organized patients' families, given press conferences and lobbied lawmakers.
SUH: (Through interpreter) I keep telling them that the quality of life for people like my child matters. But it has been overlooked. I think there's some sympathy for what I say, but that hasn't helped to resolve the current situation.
KUHN: Suh says both the government and the doctors are responsible for the current stalemate.
SUH: (Through interpreter) I think it's time for citizens to rise up and say to both sides, what are you doing?
KUHN: Lee Sang Yoon (ph) is a senior research fellow at the civic group, Center for Health and Social Change. He says that the med school enrollment issue is basically a smoke screen.
LEE SANG YOON: (Through interpreter) What the government opted for is a very populist approach, which hides the real problems and diverts discussions to the populist solutions that the administration intended.
KUHN: South Koreans are angry that emergency rooms and rural hospitals are short-staffed, while plastic surgery and weight loss clinics are booming. Lee says that one solution is more publicly funded hospitals. But he says such reforms would challenge powerful interest groups.
LEE: (Through interpreter) Korean doctors' groups, which have so strongly opposed increasing the number of doctors, are likely to resist such fundamental reforms even more strongly. So watching this current crisis has made me more pessimistic about reaching such solutions.
KUHN: Lee says that the government is unpopular, so it may be forced to back down. But he adds that the current strike is undermining the public's trust in the medical system. And without that trust, he says, a win for the doctors would be an empty one.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Seoul. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
