Children's health care crisis looms large in Korea

• Published date: 26 February 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

Kim Ji-hye, the mother of a 13-month-old boy, was alarmed to find her son had a fever early Saturday morning.

As the new mother has learned, a fever could have a catastrophic impact on a baby. She rushed him to a nearby children's hospital in Seocho District in Seoul, only to find a long line of parents with their sick kids, 30 minutes before the hospital opened.

"There were more than 25 patients waiting for treatment just 15 minutes after the hospital opened," Kim said. "It was so hard to wait for my son's turn while standing up cradling the crying baby in my arms for more than an hour. I was also scared that my son's condition could worsen while having to wait for a long time to receive treatment."

Similar stories experienced by many other parents with sick children can be spotted easily on online communities amid a deepening shortage of medical facilities for children and pediatric physicians in the country.

The shortage is mainly attributed to a falling birthrate and a growing reluctance among medical students to specialize in pediatrics due to a heavy workload and low pay compared to other popular fields such as plastic surgery.

According to a Statistics Korea report issued, Wednesday, the country's total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime, fell to 0.78 in 2022, which is the lowest level seen since 1970 when the agency began compiling related data.

Korea's fertility rate remained below one for five consecutive years. The country is the only member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with a fertility rate lower than one.

The average total fertility rate of OECD members was 1.59 as of 2020.

While the falling birthrate has led to a reduction in demand for children's health care services, the pediatrics field has also waned in popularity among prospective physicians due to relatively low pay compared to the heavy workload.

According to data tallied by the Korean Pediatric Society, the number of young doctors who applied to be pediatric interns in 2023 stood only at 53 out of the 208 quota, accounting for just 25 percent.

The gap compared to other popular fields of medicine was large, as data tallied last year showed that the application rates of interns in rehabilitation medicine and plastic surgery stood at 202 percent and 180.6 percent, respectively.

What is worse is that the shortage of medical facilities for children and pediatric professionals is expected to worsen, as a falling...