Jun Ji-hye, a reporter at the finance desk of The Korea Times, focuses primarily on economic policy and government agencies, mainly covering the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service. She previously covered financial authorities, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, and earlier worked on the political, city and business desks, reporting on a wide range of issues.
Gov't-doctors negotiations may begin in earnest after elections
Doctors walk down a hallway of a major hospital in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
By Jun Ji-hye
Doctors’ groups move to unite, prepare for joint press conference
The government and doctors are signaling apparent willingness to move toward negotiations to find a breakthrough in their protracted confrontation over the policy to raise the number of medical students by 2,000 next year.
Expectations are raised cautiously that the two sides may begin negotiations in earnest after the April 10 general elections, as the government keeps saying that it remains open to dialogue.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said Monday that adjusting the range of the hike or withdrawal of the policy would be difficult but “would not be physically impossible.”
Various groups of doctors, for their part, are moving to unify their opinions and planning to hold a joint press conference after the elections.
Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo said during a media briefing, “If various groups of doctors plan to gather, the government is willing to sit together and engage in productive discussions.”
The comments came a day after the Korean Medical Association (KMA), the biggest doctors’ coalition, said it is preparing for a joint press conference with representatives of medical professors, interns and resident doctors as well as medical students, after the elections.
The KMA announced the plan after its emergency response committee held a three-hour meeting with Kim Chang-soo, the head of the Medical Professors Association of Korea, and Park Dan, the head of the Korea Intern Resident Association (KIRA), at the KMA building in Seoul. Lim Hyun-taek, the president-elect of the KMA, participated in the meeting online.
The meeting was held as the Yoon Suk Yeol administration has been calling on doctors to form a communication channel representing all ranks and come up with a unified and reasonable solution to resolve the impasse.
“We all gathered at one place to clarify that the KMA is at the center of the doctors’ community and joining forces with other groups to respond to the issue,” Kim Seong-geun, spokesperson of the KMA’s emergency response committee, said during a media briefing.
A doctor talks to guardians of a patient at a major hospital in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
Thousands of trainee doctors nationwide left their workplaces on Feb. 20, and medical professors began tendering mass resignations to protest the medical school quota hike plan, resulting in massive disruptions to health care services. They said that the policy will compromise the quality of medical training and education, while the government said the plan is aimed at improving public access to medical services.
The KMA, which has made a series of statements critical of the government, continued its demands for stopping procedures to hike the number of medical students, but lately it has been showing a subtle change in tone when commenting on the issue.
Spokesperson Kim said the KMA assessed “positively” the recent meeting between President Yoon and KIRA head Park, despite criticism by some junior doctors that Park met with the president without consulting with them in advance.
The government, which previously maintained a firm stance about adding the 2,000 new slots to the current annual medical school admissions quota, set at 3,058, has also shown a change in tone, stressing “flexibility” in dealing with the issue.
“We can hold talks with an open mind if doctors suggest a unified and reasonable solution,” Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said during a government meeting.
However, the presidential office made it clear, later on Monday, that the government was not considering postponing the implementation of the quota hike policy by a year. The comment came a day after the KMA made the suggestion.
"The government has not considered and will not consider a postponement," an official from the presidential office said.
One of the obstacles hindering progress in negotiations between the two sides is the opposition of Lim, the KMA's president-elect. Lim expressed dissatisfaction with several decisions made by the association, including plans to hold the joint press conference and the suggestion of postponing the policy.
Lim, one of the staunchest opponents of the government's quota hike policy, has expressed his intention to lead the KMA's emergency response committee to swiftly counter the plan. His official tenure as president will start on May 1.
If his request is accepted, the outcome of the ongoing standoff would become even more uncertain.