The oriental medicine community has called for putting traditional medicine practitioners into the medical field to fill the healthcare vacuum caused by striking doctors. On Thursday, however, the Ministry of Health and Welfare drew a line on the issue, saying, “We can’t do that.”

In response to the mass resignation of doctors who oppose the increase in medical school students, the oriental medicine community has said it would cooperate by using public health herbalists.

However, the government said it could not use oriental medicine practitioners to fill the vacuum.

"The government wants oriental medicine practitioners to carry out their work as usual because they are already in oriental medicine clinics and are handling the demand," Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Park Min-soo said at the regular briefing. “We can't use public health oriental medicine doctors to fill the vacancies of physicians. We cannot approach the matter with such a concept."

Park went on to say, "In general, if you go to a tertiary general hospital, the severity of the disease is not the same as that treated by oriental clinics, so it is difficult to expect a perfect replacement."

“In general, if there are patients who can be treated sufficiently at oriental medicine clinics after receiving treatment at tertiary general hospitals, they can play a role by treating such transferred patients," Park added.

Earlier, the oriental medical community argued that it is necessary to fill in the gaps in medical care by putting oriental medicine doctors into places of medical residents who have stopped working due to collective resignations. They maintained that by using oriental medicine specialists and public health practitioners, the collapse of local and essential medicine can be prevented.

In a joint statement, three related organizations, including the Korean Medicine Specialist Association, said, “We will stand at the forefront of the medical field and take responsibility for the health of the people to prevent medical gaps from occurring due to collective action by physician organizations."

They also urged the government to reinterpret the “scope of medical practitioners” under the Medical Service Act to utilize public health oriental medicine practitioners actively and to stop baselessly excluding oriental medicine practitioners from public and essential medical care immediately.

"The medical gap caused by the mass resignation of specialists is causing great harm to the public health and healthcare system. The right to health, a fundamental right of the people, is being violated, and public and local healthcare has already reached a breaking point," the joint statement said. “Oriental medicine doctors and public health herbal doctors want to be on the front lines of medical care to prevent medical gaps from occurring."