South Korea abandons plan to suspend licenses of striking doctors to resolve medical impasse

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's government announced Monday it will abandon its plan to suspend the licenses of striking junior doctors as part of its efforts to convince them to return to work and resolve the country’s monthslong medical impasse.

It wasn’t immediately known whether the thousands of striking doctors would return to their hospitals after the announcement. The government's concession could also invite accusations of unfairness given its treatment of previous labor strikes and of doctors who have already returned to work.

Health Minister Cho KyooHong said the government has decided not to suspend the licenses of the strikers, who are medical interns and residents, regardless of whether they return to their hospitals or not. He said the government will also offer special measures to returnees to minimize the gap in their training and help them obtain specialist licenses in time.

“After painstaking deliberations, the government has reached this decision based on an assessment that minimizing the medical vacuum in the treatment of emergency and seriously ill patients and maintaining a training system to supply specialists at the right time will serve the public interest more than anything else,” Cho said.

More than 90% of the country’s 13,000 medical interns and residents walked off their jobs in February to protest the government’s plan to sharply boost medical school admissions. The walkout has significantly burdened the operations of university hospitals where they were training and threatened to disrupt South Korea’s medical services.

Some senior doctors and professors at those teaching schools supported the walkout by holding rallies and temporarily walking off their jobs or reducing their working hours.

Officials have said they want to add up to 10,000 doctors by 2035 to cope with the country’s fast-aging population and a shortage of physicians in rural areas and in low-paying yet essential specialties like pediatrics and emergency departments.

Doctors say schools aren’t ready to handle such an abrupt increase in students and that it would ultimately undermine the country’s medical services. But critics argue that physicians, one of the best-paid jobs in South Korea, are mainly worried that having more doctors would lower their future incomes.

The striking doctors suffered a major legal setback after a Seoul court in May ruled in support of the government’s plan. The Supreme Court upheld that ruling in June.

The government later took steps to withdraw its plan to suspend the licenses of doctors who returned to their hospitals but didn’t do so for those who remained off the job. Only a small number of strikers have returned to work. As of last Friday, about 8% of the 13,756 medical interns and residents at about 210 teaching hospitals were working, according to government records.

Government officials earlier threatened to impose three-month license suspensions on striking doctors and even indictments by prosecutors for refusing back-to-work orders. President Yoon Suk Yeol — who has said illegal strikes should be dealt with in line with the law — also called the doctors’ walkout an “illegal collective action.”

The standoff created strife among doctors, with some harassing colleagues who opted not to join or continue the strike, according to local media reports.

Cho, the health minister, said the government was aware of possible criticism over the issue of fairness in its decision not to suspend the licenses of the striking doctors. He said patient groups and some medical officials have called for an early end of the walkout by the striking doctors.

Last month, the government finalized a plan to increase next year's medical school enrollment by about 1,500, down from its earlier push for a 2,000-student increase. The current medical student enrollment cap has been unchanged at 3,058 since 2006, with doctors blocking previous government attempts to raise it with vehement protests.

South Korean Health and Welfare Minister Cho KyooHong speaks during a briefing at the government complex in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 8, 2024. (Choi Jae-goo/Yonhap via AP)

South Korean Health and Welfare Minister Cho KyooHong speaks during a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters at the government complex in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 8, 2024. South Korea says it’ll withdraw its earlier plan to suspend licenses of striking doctors to resolve the country's long medical impasse.(Choi Jae-goo/Yonhap via AP)

MIAMI (AP) — A storm system that was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico strengthened into Tropical Storm Milton on Saturday and forecasters warned it could intensify into a hurricane and slam into the west coast of Florida later this week.

Tropical Storm Milton was about 355 miles (565 kilometers) west-northwest of Progreso, Mexico, and about 845 miles (1,360 kilometers) west-southwest of Tampa, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (80 kph) while heading east at 5 mph (8 kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said early Sunday.

“Milton moving slowly but expected to strengthen rapidly,” the center said, noting a “risk of life-threatening impacts increasing for portions of the Florida west coast.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 35 counties ahead of the storm's potential landfall. Since many of those counties are still recovering from Hurricane Helene, DeSantis asked the Florida Division of Emergency Management and the Florida Department of Transportation to coordinate all available resources and personnel to supplement local communities as they expedite debris removal.

Though no coastal watches or warnings were in effect, the hurricane center said the Florida Peninsula, the Florida Keys, Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and the northwestern Bahamas should monitor the system’s progress.

The storm is forecast to strengthen and bring the risk of life-threatening impacts to parts of Florida, with hurricane and storm-surge watches likely in effect from Sunday. Parts of the state are expected to have heavy rainfall beginning that day, threatening flash, urban, and areal flooding, along with some river flooding.

“There is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday. Residents in these areas should ensure they have their hurricane plan in place, follow any advice given by local officials, and check back for updates to the forecast,” the center said.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Kirk remained a Category 4 major hurricane about 1,345 miles (2,165 kilometers) west-southwest of the Azores with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) late Saturday night, the center said.

Large swells from the storm causing “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” were affecting the Leeward Islands, Bermuda, the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas and the U.S. East Coast. The swells were expected to move north along the U.S. East Coast and Canada's Atlantic Coast on Sunday and to the Azores on Monday, the center said.

Hurricane Leslie was moving northwest over the open Atlantic without posing a threat to land, forecasters said late Saturday.

The storm was located about 855 miles (1,375 kilometers) west of the southernmost Cabo Verde Islands with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (128 kph). There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

The storms churned as rescuers in the U.S. Southeast searched for people unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene struck last week, leaving behind a trail of death and catastrophic damage.

This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken at 4:50 p.m. EDT and provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Tropical Storm Milton, center, off the coast of Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. (NOAA via AP)

This Satellite image provided by NOAA shows Tropical Storm Leslie, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024 in the Atlantic Ocean. (NOAA via AP)