A patient walks past an emergency room at a major hospital in Seoul, Sept. 8. Yonhap

The number of cancer surgeries decreased significantly in the first five months after a junior doctors' strike began in February, data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) showed Monday.

Between February and June, the number of patients who underwent cancer surgeries at upper-class general hospitals nationwide totaled 57,244, falling by 11,181, or 16.3 percent, from 68,425 in the same period of last year, according to the HIRA data released by Rep. Kim Yoon of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea.

The rate of decline was much greater at the nation's so-called "Big Five" hospitals — Asan Medical Center, Samsung Medical Center, Severance Hospital, Seoul National University Hospital and Seoul St. Mary's Hospital — where cancer surgeries decreased by 29 percent from 28,924 to 20,532 in the five-month period.

In other words, the Big Five accounted for 75.1 percent of the aggregate decrease of 11,181.

By contrast, the decrease rate among upper-class general hospitals outside the Seoul metropolitan area stood at just 12 percent.

"The most fundamental treatment for cancer patients is surgery. But medical professionals have been turning a blind eye to the lives of patients, as seen in the steep decline in the cancer surgeries," an official at the Korean Cancer Patients Rights Council said. (Yonhap)