보건복지부 영문홈페이지

In 2012, the number of public health doctors is decreased by 491.

 

 

Minister of Health and Welfare (Minister Rim, Chae Min) said that it will deploy 1,243 new public health doctors in each city and province around on 20 Apr. 491 down from the previous year.

It said that the number of doctors in the medicine will be reduced by 371, the number of dentists will be decreased by 45 and the number of oriental medicine doctors will be cut by 75.

 

Ministry of Health and Welfare announced that medically marginalized areas such as rural and coastal areas and areas where medical service is directly provided should be placed with public health doctors as priority in terms of securing publicness. 

 

Public health centers and branches in county areas, local medical institutions in medically marginalized areas, national special hospitals such as Sorokdo Hospital and mental hospitals and hospitals designated for emergency care in county areas and small cities with the population of fewer than 150 thousand, etc are where public health doctors should be placed with first.

 

The number of public doctors for medical institutions offering free medical care for socially vulnerable class such as the free clinic for the homeless and Hanawon, etc will be maintained at a current level.

 

In the meantime, as the number of public doctors is decreased dramatically, national institutions that don’t offer medical service, medical institutions in urban areas with good access to medical service and medical institutions with revenues secured will be excluded from the new deployment of public health doctors.

 

In this regard, fire departments, National Cancer Center, National Central Medical Center, Korean Veterans Hospital and private hospitals that have no emergency care function and the public hospital for the elderly care which is operated by a private business on consignment will be excluded from the new deployment of public health doctors. 

 

Ministry of Health and Welfare said that since medically marginalized areas such as rural and coastal areas and emergency center centers are placed with public doctors first, there won’t be a case where medical service fails to be provided in rural and coastal areas..

 

However, some private hospitals and hospitals for the elderly care with no emergency care function will have to bear the burden of securing doctors from outside as their existing public health doctors will complete their service years this year but they won’t be replaced with newly deployed public health doctors.

 

Ministry of Health and Welfare will implement a system of deploying medical staff to hospitals in marginalized areas through nearby university hospitals, foreseeing a steady decrease in the number of public health doctors and will provide the support for the cost of facilities and equipment reinforcement in order to relieve the financial burden resulting from the employment of medical staff. 

 

Especially, measures to utilize retired doctors in medically marginalized areas in rural and coastal areas will be sought in cooperation with the Korean Medical Association, Korean Dental Association, the Association of Korean Oriental Medicine, etc considering a phenomenon of people leaving the city and returning to farming and an increase of the number of people returning their home villages.  

 

Ministry of Health and Welfare said that the number of public health doctors decreased by 630 last year and is reduced by 491 this year as well because the ratio of male students among newly enrolled medical college students (69.5% in 06 -> 56.9% in 2010) and also because the percentage of those who have finished their army service is 5.1% in medical universities but the percentage in graduate schools of medicine is as great as 30.1%, thus leading to a decrease in the number of male doctors joining the army. 

 

Ministry of Health and Welfare said that in 2012, 4,054 public health doctors will be deployed in total, but the number will be further decreased by 912, worsening the situation of public health doctor deployment. It added that therefore, medical institutions that have been dependent on public health doctors will have to prepare for securing doctors in advance.

 

 

 

[Reference]