Regional public hospitals suffer serious staff shortage

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

National

Tue, October 3, 2023 | 05:27

Health & Science

Regional public hospitals suffer serious staff shortage

Posted : 2023-03-09 08:21

Updated : 2023-03-10 08:18

Cheongju Medical Center in North Chungcheong Province / Korea Times file

By Jun Ji-hye

Public medical centers located outside of Seoul are suffering serious doctor shortages due mainly to the lower pay and educational standards seen further out from the city.

According to documents submitted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to Rep. Suh Jung-sook of the ruling People Power Party, 24 out of 35 regional medical centers have failed to meet the necessary quota for doctors as of January this year.

The ratio of vacancies on average is about 18 percent, meaning that each hospital is one out of five doctors short of the necessary amount needed to operate normally.

Unpopular fields such as pediatrics, obstetrics, cardiothoracic surgery and neurosurgery have faced a more serious operating crisis, causing damage to patients in regional areas.

Gyeonggi Provincial Medical Center Ansung Hospital closed its operating room for two months from December to January. It could not recruit an anesthesiologist at the time.

Incheon Medical Center has suspended the operation of its hemodialysis unit after the nephrology doctor quit last year. The hospital has failed to fill the vacancy.

A man enters Incheon Medical Center in this photo taken on June 22 last year. Yonhap

Cheongju Medical Center in North Chungcheong Province has suspended medical services in the departments of neurology and ophthalmology for three years and five years, respectively, due also to recruitment failures.

The hospital said it is fortunate that an ophthalmologist is planning to join the hospital next month. But the pulmonology department is expected to face another suspension as the current pulmonologist is planning to quit this month to move to another hospital near Seoul.

In the same province, Chungju Medical Center has faced a similar situation. Its ear-nose-and-throat clinic as well as the departments of rehabilitation medicine and family medicine have suspended their services.

"We have paid about 7 million won ($5,300) to 8 million won annually for putting up job advertisements. The advertisements are posted 365 days a year, but doctors are reluctant to work here," an official from Chungju Medical Center said.

Sokcho Medical Center in Gangwon Province has recently drawn attention after increasing its annual salary for emergency medicine specialists to 420 million won in its recent recruitment notice.

The hospital, which shortened the operation of its emergency room to four days a week due to a staff shortage last month, needs to recruit three emergency medicine specialists. But there were no applicants in the first recruitment notice posted last month.

The hospital suggested increasing the annual salary to 420 million won in the second notice. But despite the high salary, only one doctor was recruited.

The hospital will have to post the fourth notice as the third one ended up again recruiting only one doctor.

Being well aware of the difficulties facing regional medical centers, Danyang County in North Chungcheong Province is raising concerns ahead of the opening of a new medical center in the region.

The county originally planned to recruit three to four emergency medicine specialists to operate the emergency room 24 hours a day.

"We plan to post the recruitment notice in October, but it won't be easy to recruit as many doctors as we want," an official from Danyang County said.

Amid the deepening shortage of professionals, several medical centers have appeared to hire old doctors in order to prevent a medical services vacuum in their regions.

Low pay for heavy workload

The low pay offered in public hospitals compared to that of private medical institutions in Seoul has been cited as one of the main reasons for the shortage in various regions.

In addition, many doctors are reluctant to live in regional areas because they want to educate their children in big cities, where some of the best schools are located.

The vicious circle for regional medical centers has continued repeating as staff shortages result in heavy workloads, making it more difficult to hire young doctors.

Those in medical circles claim that difficulties facing public hospitals cannot be solved by the efforts of each individual hospital anymore. Instead, they call on the government to put in policy support as a remedy to the issue.

They say incentives will be necessary to encourage young doctors to work in public medical centers despite the salary gap between those and private hospitals.

"The public healthcare system has collapsed while regional disparity has worsened," said Cho Seung-yeon, the head of the Incheon Medical Center who also heads the Korea Association of Regional Public Hospitals. "The government should step up its efforts to revive the public healthcare system."

jjh@koreatimes.co.kr