SEOUL: The South Korean government issued a return-to-work order for private practitioners on Tuesday as more doctors including medical professors join the months-long strike to protest increasing medical school admissions.
Around four percent of some 36,000 private clinics have notified the government of plans to be closed on Tuesday to take part in the protest, Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said.
“To minimize the medical gap, the return-to-work order will be issued at 9 a.m. today,” Cho told a briefing.
The government previously issued a return-to-work order to striking trainee doctors before withdrawing it earlier this month as an olive branch.
Under the law, doctors defying the return-to-work order can face suspension of their licenses or other legal repercussions.
President Yoon Suk Yeol said the doctors’ strike was “regretful and disappointing.”
“(The government) has no choice but to sternly deal with the illegal acts neglecting patients,” Yoon said during a cabinet meeting, while offering to work together if the doctors return to work.
The Korea Medical Association, a critic of the government’s reforms, was leading Tuesday’s strike. The group also staged a protest in Seoul on the same day, calling for reconsideration of increasing medical school admissions.
“The government should respect...all doctors in this land as life-saving experts, not slaves, and listen to their voices,” Association President Lim Hyun-taek said.
At least some 10,000 people showed up for the protest, according to a Reuters witness, with protesters wearing a makeshift hat saying: “Prevent medical collapse.”
According to a survey by local pollster nownsurvey conducted last week, nearly eight in 10 South Koreans oppose the doctors’ strike.
Some doctors and medical staff have openly criticized the collective action in response to the government’s push for an increase in medical school admissions to address the shortage of doctors in the country.
Others have argued that increasing the number of doctors alone will do little to shore up essential services and rural areas grappling with a deepening shortage of doctors.
More than half of medical professors at Seoul National University hospitals on Monday went on indefinite strike, the Yonhap news agency reported.
South Korea orders doctors to return to work amid prolonged strike
https://arab.news/6nnt4
South Korea orders doctors to return to work amid prolonged strike
- Around four percent of some 36,000 private clinics have notified the government of plans to be closed on Tuesday to take part in the protest
- The government previously issued a return-to-work order to striking trainee doctors before withdrawing it earlier this month
Russian attack wounds at least 32 in southern Ukraine
- The attacks came with the United States pushing Ukraine to accept peace terms to halt the fighting that critics have said are favorable to the Kremlin
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine: Russian air strikes on and around the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday wounded at least 32 people, according to the local authorities.
The head of the regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov, wrote on Telegram that all of those wounded came from the city and its surroundings.
Rescue services earlier in the day said that five children were among the casualties in a provisional toll of 30, after strikes on a block of flats, a house and an educational establishment.
AFP journalists at the scene saw firefighters battling a blaze in a multiple-story housing block, where black smoke was billowing into the sky.
Fedorov said two people were also wounded in a Russian drone strike on a civilian car in Kushuhum, south of Zaporizhzhia.
The industrial city of Zaporizhzhia had a pre-war population of around 710,000 people and lies 27 kilometers (17 miles) from the front line. It has been targeted frequently by Russian forces since they invaded in February 2022.
The Kremlin claimed in late 2022 that it had annexed the wider region, along with three other eastern and southern regions of Ukraine.
The attacks came with the United States pushing Ukraine to accept peace terms to halt the fighting that critics have said are favorable to the Kremlin.
