Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service Ulsan Hospital Delays Opening to November After Failing to Recruit Doctors; Trial Care to Begin in Only Some Departments

【Financial News, Ulsan—Reporter Choi Soo-sang】Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service Ulsan Hospital (hereafter, Ulsan Workers’ Compensation Hospital), a specialized industrial accident hospital, has pushed back its formal opening from October to after mid-November amid a severe shortage of doctors and other challenges in recruitment. With hiring for key medical staff, including emergency medicine specialists, falling through, it is expected to take considerable time before the hospital can operate normally.
According to Ulsan City and other sources on the 26th, Ulsan Workers’ Compensation Hospital set a total quota of 36 physicians across 16 clinical departments to serve industrial accident patients and local residents. The positions include four physicians each for internal medicine, orthopedics, and rehabilitation medicine; three each for occupational and environmental medicine and ward-duty coverage; two each for neurosurgery, surgery, anesthesiology and pain medicine, emergency medicine, and dedicated emergency-room coverage; and one each for neurology, otolaryngology, pediatrics and adolescent medicine, family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, dentistry, radiology, and laboratory medicine.
However, following a major recruitment drive for specialists ahead of the opening, the hospital secured only around 20 doctors, or 55.6% of its authorized complement. Internal medicine, occupational and environmental medicine, and dentistry filled their quotas, but only one candidate applied for the four rehabilitation medicine positions and two for the four orthopedic positions, both key areas in treating industrial accident injuries. In particular, six major departments, including emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and neurology, had no applicants.
As a result, the trial medical services underway since the 20th are operating in a severely disrupted manner and are limited to just a few departments: internal medicine, occupational and environmental medicine, and dentistry, where staff have been secured, as well as pediatrics, orthopedics, and neurosurgery, where some positions have been filled. By contrast, emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and neurology have no doctors at all and have been completely excluded from the trial services, making an initial gap in medical care a reality.
Materials from a recent parliamentary audit revealed that, in an effort to overcome the reluctance to work at regional public medical institutions, the hospital had offered exceptionally generous pay on par with private hospitals in the Ulsan area: monthly take-home pay of ₩16 million to ₩22 million. Converted to gross annual salaries, this amounts to at least the mid-to-upper ₩300 million range and more than ₩400 million at the top end.
Ulsan Workers’ Compensation Hospital has currently re-advertised a position in radiology, where specialists are urgently needed, and says it will continue hiring additional staff to fill its remaining vacancies through the end of the year after its formal opening in mid-November. Accordingly, confusion among residents and disruptions to care during the hospital’s early days, due to the absence of dedicated emergency-room doctors and essential specialists, appear unavoidable for the time being.


[email protected] Choi Soo-sang Reporter