By Choi Sung-jin
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Peevish U.S. President Donald Trump, perhaps tired of frequent comparisons with the Korean examples, wastes no time pointing out any problems occurring here.
This country now stands at the crossroads of entering into the second wave of a national epidemic, however. Two troublesome groups arouse popular resentment in this regard ― some Protestant churches and medical doctors.
Sarang Jeil Church has become the nation's new coronavirus hotbed with an accumulated caseload of 875 as of Monday noon. Its members systematically impeded quarantine efforts, sneering at and assaulting officials and refusing to take tests. Jun Kwang-hoon, the church's pastor who tested positive himself, said the government is committing "virus terror."
Jun and his followers staged an anti-government rally in the heart of Seoul on Aug. 15, the National Liberation Day, along with other right-wing groups. Some 10,000 people, many without masks or hanging them over their chins, chanted slogans and ate food together. The virus outbreak in its aftermath forced the government to drive up social distancing to the second-highest level in the Seoul metro region.
In Korea, some Protestant churches have always tried to expand their congregations through enlisting the power of politics. Likewise, some political groups, mostly conservatives, have resorted to seeking churches' influence to lift approval ratings and win in elections. Their collaboration began with the birth of the Republic of Korea in 1948 when the first President Syngman Rhee joined forces with large Protestant churches. They had one thing in common ― whenever faced with crises, the two groups pointed to "commies and leftists" as culprits.
As recently as in March 2019, Hwang Kyo-ahn, then leader of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, which was renamed this year as United Future Party, visited Pastor Jun. The two had since been seen attending various rallies together raising each other's hands. The conservative party had made no efforts to keep its distance from the ultra-right church. Now that Jun's church has emerged as a new epicenter of virus outbreaks, the opposition party is denying its ties to the church. The separation of church and state is one of the prerequisites for a modern democratic nation. When they collude with each other, the nation becomes confused and people suffer.
Equally incurring the wrath of people reeling under the protracted coronavirus fight are doctors. Physicians and surgeons under the Korea Medical Association criticize the Moon Jae-in administration's four healthcare policies ― increasing medical school college admission quotas, setting up a public medical school, introducing telemedicine, and giving insurance benefits to some Oriental medicines ― as the "four evils." Thousands of trainee doctors been staging a strike and some medical students call for boycotting the state exams for becoming doctors next month in a show of protest. If churches have added oil to the pandemic fire, doctors are fanning the flames.
According to statistics, Korean doctors earned about six times more than urban workers on average in 2017, two to three times wider than the income gaps in other member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In contrast, the number of doctors per 1,000 people stood at 2 here in the same year, excluding traditional Korean medicine practitioners, far lower than the OECD average of 3.5. The number of medical college graduates is six per 100,000 people in Korea, less than half of the average 14 in the rich countries' club. Even if the admission quotas increase by 400 in 2021 as the government plans, the number of graduates will stand at 6.8 in 2027, barely half of the OECD average.
Whatever these doctors say, their resistance to the four policies can be little more than self-interest and self-protection. Little wonder the website of the presidential office is full of petitions calling for a stern response to the medical community. Some urged the government not give another opportunity for medical students rejecting state tests.
The KMA says the number of doctors is rapidly increasing here in contrast to the equally shrinking population. However, the fast population aging in this country will redouble the demand for healthcare in the coming decades. Their claim ― that 400 more doctors a year, or 4,000 in a decade, under the government plan, will downgrade the quality of about 130,000 physicians ― is contrived or nonsense.
The doctors also maintain that one public medical school will not solve the shortage of public doctors. Then the alternative will be opening more than one public medical school, not discarding the plan altogether. Contactless healthcare service has long been a norm in many advanced countries, including the U.S. and Japan. Korean doctors reject it because face-to-face treatments are more profitable. Giving insurance coverage to packaged traditional Korean medicines whose efficacy and safety have not been verified may also need some more discussion. Still, doctors' opposition to this plan also smacks of discrimination against traditional Korean medicine practitioners or begrudging them regardless of whether they could help some patients.
The medical community may be right that a simple increase of doctors cannot resolve all problems unless the government addresses the imbalance between different specialties, departments and regions. However, these are reasons for supplementing, not withdrawing, the proposed policies. The KMA is even turning down the proposal for a "coronavirus truce," only repeating their calls for canceling the policies and revealing their only purpose is to maintain the status quo.
Christians frequently say "love thy neighbor," but too many of them don't seem to care for others' safety. Doctors have taken the Hippocratic oath to put "patients' lives and health" ahead of all else, yet most of them are putting down their tools in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic. Koreans may not be able to get over the coronavirus blues for a long while yet.
Choi Sung-jin (choisj1955@naver.com) is a Korea Times columnist.
