South Korea: Emergency room patients fall 60% since February after conflict between medical community and government

In South Korea, a professor of emergency medicine testified that conflict between the medical community and the government has led to a decrease in emergency room doctors, and that the number of patients using emergency rooms this year is down by about 60% compared to normal years.
Professor Lee Seong-woo of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Korea University Anam Hospital spoke at the 41st Korean Medical Association Conference on the 10th.
Professor Lee made the remarks during a presentation on the topic of "emergency medical communication systems" at an online general academic conference. "Since February of this year, the number of patients in the emergency room has decreased by 60% compared to normal years. This month, the number of patients has decreased by 50% compared to normal years," he said.
The number of patients has improved slightly, but the remaining half of the patients are still being left somewhere.' February was the time when medical residents began to resign en masse in protest against the government's expansion of medical school admission quotas.
Professor Lee said, "The aging of the population is exacerbating the problem of overcrowding in emergency rooms." Professor Lee said, "The proportion of people aged 75 and over at each emergency medical facility is steadily increasing, but the number of people in emergency rooms is also increasing.
"Elderly patients who come in often need to be hospitalized," he said. "The overcrowding in the emergency room can be expressed in terms of the length of time people stay in the emergency room, but the length of time people over 75 years old spend in the emergency room is longer than people under 75 years old."
"The aging population is closely related to the overcrowding of emergency rooms," he said. According to Professor Lee, as of 2019, the average stay time in an emergency room for patients under the age of 75 was 2.4 hours.
Professor Lee also pointed out the phenomenon of patients visiting large hospitals regardless of the severity of their illness.
"They are mildly ill patients who fall under (KTAS) 4 or 5. We need a strategy to use the system so that patients can use emergency medical facilities that are appropriate for their level of severity."
Professor Lee said, "The situation in emergency rooms will worsen in the future because emergency medicine specialists are avoiding regional emergency medical centers with high workloads.
The number of emergency room specialists working at regional emergency medical centers increased by about four people, from 440.4 in 2022 to 444.8 last year.
The number of emergency room specialists at emergency medical centers increased by nearly 90, from 937.1 to 1,025. Professor Lee said, "This is because the number of specialists at regional centers, where emergency medical care is relatively less of a burden, is increasing.
This means that doctors will be concentrated. With over 96% of medical trainees who are engaged in essential medical care leaving due to conflict between the medical community and the government, it is highly likely that this phenomenon will become even more severe in the future."
He added, "There is a great concern that the sudden collapse of emergency medicine doctors and essential medical departments related to the final treatment of emergency patients could cause the department of emergency medicine to revert to the way it was 30 years ago."