Government to discuss 'flexible measures' on junior doctors behind mass walkout

Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong presides over a Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters meeting at Sejong government complex in Sejong on Monday. [YONHAP]

Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong on Monday “welcomed” a medical professors’ group's position, saying they are “ready to have constructive dialogue with the government.”

“To minimize the medical void, the government will discuss how to take flexible measures on junior doctors who have staged a walkout,” Cho said during a Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters meeting on the same day.

“The government shall consider the medical sector as a partner in making health care policies and reflect their voices proactively.”

While the minister promised his best efforts for communication and persuasion, he also reaffirmed an unbending stance on medical reform by stating that the government will "complete the medical reform based on enrollment quota expansion at medical schools, which happens for the first time in 27 years.”

Cho’s remarks came a day after President Yoon Suk Yeol asked Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Sunday to seek “flexible measures with the coordination of the People Power Party (PPP)” and to “form a consultative body with medical professionals to pursue dialogue."

PPP interim leader Han Dong-hoon on Sunday had a 50-minute-long meeting with senior members of the medical professors’ group, the Medical Professors Association of Korea, at Sinchon Severance Hospital in western Seoul.

Han said the talk was based on the request to mediate between doctors and the government to prevent a situation where people could be harmed.

The association on Monday demanded the government to "withdraw the quota increase in medical schools and revoke the quota allocation," stating that the current impasses cannot be resolved without the government’s concession.

The group said that it delivered the stance during Sunday’s meeting with PPP leader Han.

It added that professorial resignations and a 52-hour workweek will begin starting Monday.

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