Anchor: More than two weeks have passed since trainee doctors launched a collective action in protest of a planned increase of the medical school admissions quota, leading to a medical vacuum. In response, the government plans to use over 180 billion won a month, taken from national health insurance funds, to maintain services for critical patients.
Choi You Sun reports.

Report: The government on Thursday announced additional measures designed to tackle the prolonged medical vacuum caused by the nation's trainee doctors resigning en masse in protest of an increase in the medical school admissions quota.

On top of injecting 128-point-five billion won, or around 97 million U.S. dollars, from state reserve funds to hire medical staff and to minimize medical service disruptions, the government will divert an additional 188-point-two billion won a month from national health insurance funds.

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said the state funds will be used to compensate medical institutions that continue to offer services for critically ill patients, and to introduce grants for the specialists who treat them.

The government plans to separately spend around 120 billion won from national health insurance funds to increase state payouts for essential medicine concerning expecting mothers, newborns and those with serious illnesses.

Starting Friday, nurses will be allowed to perform CPR and administer injections of medication on emergency patients.

As of Wednesday, eleven-thousand-219 trainee doctors, or around 91-point-eight percent of those at 100 training hospitals, had resigned and walked out of their workplaces.

Following some medical school professors shaving their heads in protest of the medical school admissions quota increase, staff at The Catholic University of Korea's College of Medicine resigned en masse late Wednesday, criticizing the university for unilaterally applying to increase admissions.

This comes as more than five-thousand-400 medical students nationwide have applied to take a leave of absence in an apparent show of protest.
Choi You Sun, KBS World Radio News.