Gov't vows not to backtrack increased medical school admission quotas despite doctors' walkout
Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo speaks during a press briefing in Seoul, March 29. Yonhap
The government's ongoing push for medical reform is for the people, and it cannot be subject to negotiations, the health ministry said Friday, effectively rejecting the medical community's call for modifying the state plan to markedly raise medical school enrollment quota.
More than 90 percent of the country's 13,000 trainee doctors have been on strike in the form of mass resignations since Feb. 20 to protest the government's decision to increase the medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 seats from the current 3,058 starting next year.
"The government will not reverse the decision to push for the reform that a majority of the people want after negotiations with a specific group," Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo told a regular briefing.
The minister stressed that the quota increase plan was made after "holding more than 130 rounds of opinion gathering sessions" and it will not backtrack the plan "without reasonable grounds."
"The government will not repeat the unfortunate history of succumbing to a specific job group. We will stick to the principle of rule of law, stand by the people and complete the medical reform," Park said.
The government has said that it is open to dialogue to resolve the situation, but made it clear that the quota increase by 2,000 cannot be changed, though some lawmakers even from the ruling People Power Party have proposed a more gradual approach.
The government is pushing to increase the admission quota to address a shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas and essential medical fields, such as high-risk surgeries, pediatrics, obstetrics and emergency medicine.
Given the rapid population aging and other issues, the country is also expected to fall short of 15,000 doctors by 2035.
But doctors argue that the quota hikes would compromise the quality of medical education and services and create a surplus of physicians, and the government must devise ways of better protecting them from malpractice suits and extending compensation to induce more physicians to practice in such "unpopular" areas.
In support of the junior doctors' move, medical school professors nationwide have begun submitting their resignations from Monday.
Medical service disruptions are expected to worsen further as the professors, who serve as senior doctors at major hospitals, vowed to reduce their weekly work hours to 52 hours by adjusting surgeries and other medical treatments and to "minimize" medical services for outpatients.
Lim Hyun-taek, newly elected head of the Korean Medical Association (KMA), speaks during a press briefing in Seoul, March 29. Yonhap
The new head-elect of a major lobby group for doctors said that "the ball is now in the government's and the ruling party's courts."
Lim Hyun-taek made the comment during his first press briefing Friday after being elected as a leader of the Korean Medical Association this week. His three-year term will officially begin in May.
"Doctors want to normalize the situation as fast as possible but there is nothing they can do if the government does not have a will to have talks," Lim said, lambasting the government and the ruling party for "playing Russian roulette."
Lim also called on patients to "make their voice heard" to persuade the government to resolve the standoff, and vowed to launch campaigns against April 10 election candidates if they "demonize doctors."
The government has been taking administrative steps to suspend the licenses of striking doctors as they missed a government-set deadline to return to work late last month.
President Yoon Suk Yeol instructed officials to "exert flexibility" in the implementation of the license suspension. (Yonhap)