SEOUL – South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo met the leaders of five top general hospitals, as the new head of a medical lobby group rejected dialogue with the government to end a doctors’ walkout that has strained the healthcare system.

Mr Han on March 29 discussed ways for hospitals to cope with staff shortages due to the walkout, which has entered its second month, by almost all of the nation’s 13,000 trainee doctors, who play key roles in emergency care and surgical procedures.

The government reiterated that it would not back down from its plan to add 2,000 more slots a year at medical schools, from the current 3,058, to alleviate a doctor shortage that ranks as one of the most acute in the developed word.

Dr Lim Hyun-taek, the newly elected leader of the country’s biggest lobby group for doctors, the Korean Medical Association, has said there is no reason to talk until the government drops its plan to increase enrolments.

“The ruling party is clearly to blame for this situation,” he said at a news conference. The doctors contend the government’s medical school enrolment plan will not fix fundamental problems in the healthcare system, which they say include insufficient specialists in certain fields, doctors being concentrated in urban areas, and poor working conditions.

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration has said that the increase is the first in nearly three decades and is needed to elevate the quality of medical services for the country’s rapidly ageing population. It has offered concessions to improve working conditions and pay, but that has not enticed doctors to end their walkout.

The walkout will be on the minds of voters as the country holds elections on April 10. Mr Yoon’s conservative People Power Party is trying to wrest control of Parliament from the progressive Democratic Party, which could end a gridlock for the remainder of Mr Yoon’s term that ends in 2027.

Surveys show that the public sides with the government’s plan, and some critics contend the walkout is more about protecting the earning power of physicians rather than improving the quality of healthcare.

Doctors in South Korea have some of the highest pay in the developed world compared with average wages, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

“Don’t be obsessed with OECD’s average numbers,” Dr Lim said, adding that South Korean doctors provide some of the best care for patients in the world. BLOOMBERG