Mapo District's health center advertised a single fixed-term doctor post six times between January and June without finding a doctor. "No one applied, so we're preparing to post it again," a center official told the Chosun Ilbo.

The Guro District Public Health Center is taking applications from Sept. 21 to 23 for an internal medicine doctor on a two-year contract. It is the center's sixth attempt after five failed postings since February.

One of its two internist positions has sat empty, leaving one doctor to do the work of two, a Guro official said.

Jongno District hired a doctor in August, but only after its ninth posting.

Doctors at Seoul's public health centers, excluding directors, fell 13.5% from 156 in 2022 to 135 in 2025, according to the Chosun Ilbo.

Seoul had 479 doctors per 100,000 insured residents in 2023, the highest of any region in South Korea, according to National Health Insurance Service data reported by the Kyunghyang Shinmun.

Medical workers walk at a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, Feb. 19, 2024. Photo by Yonhap via Reuters

Guro is offering about KRW83.6 million ($61,600) a year, roughly 120% of the minimum salary for a grade-5 fixed-term civil servant. Going above 120% requires a separate review by the local personnel committee and must account for fairness to other fixed-term officials.

Some underserved rural areas, short of private clinics and public health doctors, have raised annual pay to KRW300-400 million ($221,000-295,000) by combining a central government subsidy for hiring senior doctors with local funds.

Sinan, an island county in the former South Jeolla Province, filled a doctor's post on Sept. 1 only after tripling its monthly salary offer to KRW33 million, the Seoul Shinmun reported.

In Seoul, private hospitals and clinics offer far better-paid work, leaving doctors little incentive to take a health center job paying around KRW80 million.

Some have proposed hiring retired university hospital professors. However, those appointed as fixed-term health center officials lose their entire civil service or private school pension for as long as they work there.

Health centers handle infectious disease prevention, health programs for young children, women, the elderly and people with disabilities, and home-visit care. People 65 and older and recipients of basic livelihood benefits make up a large share of their users.

"Even when our remaining doctor complains about not being able to take annual leave, there's nothing we can really do," one health center official told the Chosun Ilbo. "We know it's hard to hire doctors under the current pay system, but we have no choice but to keep posting the same ad."

Lee Yong-kyun, an adjunct professor at Yonsei University's Graduate School of Public Health, told the Chosun Ilbo that health center doctors do more than treat vulnerable and chronically ill patients. They also handle administrative work such as infectious disease and disaster response.

"Demand for medical care is ballooning while supply falls short, so the public sector, the weak link, is the first to crumble," he said.

Experts say the central government should set a separate pay standard for health center doctors and expand incentives such as long-service allowances, rather than leave each district to repeat the same job ads. Some have also called for recalculating how many doctors each region needs for essential public health work and letting local governments share doctors.