Yoon slams striking doctors for 'taking lives hostage'

Social Affairs

Published: 06 Mar. 2024, 18:32 Updated: 06 Mar. 2024, 18:51

Yoon slams striking doctors for 'taking lives hostage'

President Yoon Suk Yeol presides over a Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters meeting at the government complex in Sejong on Wednesday to address collective actions staged by doctors and medical professionals in protest of medical colleges admission quota hikes. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday called for a relentless government response to striking doctors who "take people’s lives hostage,” slamming ongoing walkouts as a “violation of the right to life.”

“The collective actions shake the national foundation of liberalism and constitutionalism,” Yoon said in a Cabinet meeting in Sejong on the same day. “The country grants and manages doctors’ licenses to protect people’s lives and health. That is why their freedom comes with responsibility."

Yoon highlighted that “heavy public obligations” levied on doctors are intended to "protect the people's lives and health.”

Yoon said the government cannot withstand collective actions undermining the people's right to life.

The Cabinet decided to inject some 128 billion won ($96 million) into a reserve to fund labor costs for those working night shifts and on weekends to cover understaffing.

Specifically, the Finance Ministry announced that the Health Ministry will finance 125 billion won, and the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs will subsidize another 3.1 billion won.

“Through swift allocation and execution of the budget, the authorities will minimize the inconveniences that people are bound to experience,” said Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong.

Yoon also outlined a new measure to fix distortions in medical infrastructure.

The government will incentivize five major hospitals if they focus on providing medical services to critically ill patients or those with rare diseases.

He said the government will lower the reward given for treating less critical patients.

The five hospitals are Asan Medical Center, Samsung Medical Center, Severance Hospital, Seoul National University Hospital and Seoul St. Mary's Hospital.

He said the government will provide extra financial incentives when the five hospitals transfer non-critically ill patients to other hospitals and primary and secondary medical centers.

Medical professors at Kangwon National University shave their heads in front of the school on Tuesday to protest the university's request to increase its enrollment quota from 49 to 140. [KANGWON NATIONAL UNIVERSITY]

Medical professionals and professors are expressing displeasure since the Education Ministry announced Tuesday that 40 medical schools nationwide applied for an enrollment quota increase of 3,401 spots.

They worry that such a hike would harm educational quality.

Twelve medical professors from Gyeongsang National University filed resignations after learning that the university will increase the quota from 76 spots to 200 next year. They said the university ignored their opposition to the quota hike.

In a Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters meeting held the same day, Yoon said their concern was “invalid,” citing the foreign cases of Germany, where medical schools average 243 students per class, and Britain, where schools average 221.

He said Korean medical schools average fewer than 80 students per class.

Yoon made investment promises to elevate medical schools to a global level, saying the administration will proactively accommodate claims and demands from the medical sector.

He also promised to correct the labor structure at large general hospitals. He said that by lowering dependency on young trainee doctors, the hospitals could operate with a greater reliance on board-certified doctors.

The president said the current pool of doctors cannot handle a surging demand for medical services.

“While Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) has jumped 116-fold since 1977 — when the national health insurance system was first introduced — the country saw only a seven-fold increase in the number of doctors.”

Moreover, Yoon described the current medical chaos as an “abnormal reality” that worried people, saying the status quo substantiates the pressing need to expand the enrollment quota at medical schools.

The Health Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that nearly 9,000 young doctors had left their hospitals. It has also sent out prior notices of three-month license suspensions to doctors confirmed absent after on-site probes conducted on Monday and Tuesday.

Joo Soo-ho, head of the committee’s public relations at the Korean Medical Association’s (KMA) emergency committee, attends a questioning at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

The police on Wednesday summoned Joo Soo-ho, head of public relations on the Korean Medical Association’s (KMA) emergency committee. It marks the first time the police called in a KMA official for questioning.

The association is accused of encouraging junior doctors to resign.

Joo debunked the allegations, saying young doctors would not easily "conform to their older counterparts’ instructions."

He also called the doctors’ collective actions “nonviolent, nonresistant and voluntary.”

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]