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The government has decided to expand pediatric emergency medical centers so that children can be treated properly and in time when they suddenly become ill or very sick, and to pilot a 24-hour pediatric counseling center. However, even with this improvement, there are no pediatricians to see children on site.

Cho Dong-chan is a medical reporter.

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It is the largest Yangsan Pusan National University Children's Hospital in
Gyeongnam.

Fifty pediatric intensive care beds are running nonstop.

[Professor of Intensive Care Unit, Children's Hospital, Yangsan Pusan National University: Because there are a lot of situations like CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), there are four pediatricians on call a day, so four people now need 50 on-call jobs 4 days a month.]

However, there are only 4 specialists and 30 doctors, and even that continues to decline.

Three professors retired last year, and there are no applicants for the positions.

[Professor of Intensive Care Unit at Yangsan Pusan National University Children's Hospital: It's so funny, but how old are we going to be on call to come to an agreement, and we have these meetings at the professors' meeting.]

The government has repeatedly emphasized strengthening the health care system for severely ill children in the provinces.

[Lim In-taek/Director of the Health and Medical Policy Office of the Ministry of Health and Welfare: There are measures to foster local hospitals, which is good news for mothers with cancer in rural areas.]

When I said that if there was a dedicated doctor in the pediatric ward, they would give me extra points, the local university hospital sighed.

This is because when a dedicated position becomes available in a metropolitan hospital, professors from local universities will apply first.

[Professor of Intensive Care Unit, Children's Hospital, Yangsan Pusan National University: Our hospital has now issued a recommendation for a dedicated doctor for hospitalization, and we have no applicants, even though we have all the capacity.]

The number of pediatric doctors is rapidly decreasing.

This year, 120 out of 37 university hospitals did not have any applicants for the pediatric major.

This is because compared to other departments, the income is low and there are many disputes.

[Moon Joon-hyuk/Public Health: There were more cases where pediatric caregivers were a little more excited and treated doctors like this, like, 'Who are you, I'll push you in'.]

The government has also said it will consider raising the cost of pediatric care in the province and has also announced compensation measures for medical staff.

However, there are concerns that specific plans for the expansion of pediatric medical staff are missing, leaving limits to addressing the underlying problem.

(Video Interview: Choi Ho-joon, Video Editing: Kim Yoon-sung)