Rep. Kim Nam-hee: 24 out of 35 Facilities Fail to Meet Nurse Staffing Quotas
"Numerous Long-Term Closures and Treatment Gaps Occur"
About half of the public hospitals, including provincial medical centers and Red Cross hospitals, are suffering from a chronic shortage of doctors. This has also led to numerous gaps in medical services.
According to data received by Kim Nam-hee, a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, among 35 provincial medical centers from 2020 to 2023, around 15 failed to fill their doctor quotas.
By year, 14 centers in 2020, 16 in 2021, 15 in 2022, and 14 last year were unable to recruit the required number of doctors, meaning more than two out of every five centers each year could not meet their staffing needs.
For example, Seoul Medical Center, which has the largest doctor quota among provincial medical centers, had a quota of 285 doctors at the end of last year, but only 245 doctors were actually working. Medical centers in relatively favorable metropolitan or surrounding cities such as Incheon Medical Center, Daegu Medical Center, and Seongnam Medical Center also failed to meet their quotas annually.
For Red Cross hospitals (6 locations), 3 hospitals in 2020 and 2021, 5 in 2022, 4 last year, and 3 this year failed to meet their doctor quotas.
Many public hospitals also failed to recruit enough nurses as needed. As of 2023, 24 provincial medical centers (68.6%) reported nurse shortages.
At the end of last year, 10 provincial medical centers failed to meet both doctor and nursing staff quotas, an increase of 2 from 8 centers in 2020. Conversely, the number of centers that sufficiently filled both doctor and nursing staff quotas decreased from 12 in 2020 to 7 in 2023.
For Red Cross hospitals, as of the end of last year, 3 hospitals were understaffed in both doctors and nurses, an increase of 1 from 2020.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare increased the number of dispatched doctors from 67 in 2020 to 81 as of June this year to address the doctor shortage in provincial medical centers and Red Cross hospitals, but this has been insufficient to fill the gaps in medical services.
Due to this shortage of doctors, from 2020 through June of this year, 26 out of 35 provincial medical centers experienced long-term closures of certain departments, and 32 medical departments across 20 provincial medical centers continue to face ongoing service gaps.
Samcheok Medical Center abolished its respiratory medicine department in 2022, and Uijeongbu Hospital partially operated its emergency room from December last year to March this year before the medical-government conflict fully escalated.
Assembly member Kim stated, "In December 2020, the government announced the 'Plan to Strengthen the Public Healthcare System' and pledged to expand public healthcare and secure public healthcare nurses, but public healthcare institutions and personnel still face harsh conditions," adding, "The Yoon Seok-yeol administration's essential medical policies must include measures to revive regional public healthcare and nurture public healthcare personnel."
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