Junior doctors and gov't fail to agree on medical reforms

Social Affairs

Published: 05 Apr. 2024, 19:33 Updated: 05 Apr. 2024, 19:39

Junior doctors and gov't fail to agree on medical reforms

Three medical professionals stand inside a general hospital in Seoul on Friday. [NEWS1]

The government and medical sector failed to narrow their differences over planned medical reforms despite a face-to-face meeting between President Yoon Suk Yeol and the head of a junior doctors’ group on Thursday.

The responses to the meeting highlighted the chasm between their outlooks on the possibility of a negotiated resolution to end the ongoing strike by junior doctors, which began on Feb. 20.

While the presidential office said that Yoon would “respect the voices of the junior doctors” as his administration pursues medical reform, the head of the Korea Intern Resident Association (KIRA), Park Dan, wrote, “The Korean health care sector has no future” in a public Facebook post on Thursday evening.

KIRA’s emergency committee held a meeting on Thursday evening to discuss the group’s future steps, including whether it will continue to hold talks with the government.

However, not every junior doctor agrees with Park.

According to Yonhap News Agency on Friday, KIRA members have started internally circulating a statement calling for Park's impeachment.

The statement accused Park of “making a unilateral decision to engage in talks with the president” and criticized him for “not sharing any details about Thursday’s talks or the committee meeting [with rank-and-file KIRA members].”

The statement also criticized his actions as a “violation” of “[junior doctors’] right to be informed.”

The statement’s authors said that details of the Thursday talks were “only shared within KIRA’s emergency committee,” adding that junior doctors were not consulted for their input. The statement also said that the junior doctors’ representatives from each hospital were not offered a chance to voice their opinions on holding talks with Yoon, as KIRA did not hold a general assembly.

The statement argued that Park’s decision to engage in talks with the president without consulting KIRA members left “more than 10,000 fellow junior doctors feeling anxious, resentful and powerless.”

The head of the Korea Intern Resident Association, Park Dan, left, stands during a doctors' meeting held in February at the headquarters of the Korean Medical Association in Yongsan, central Seoul. [YONHAP]

Following the previous day’s talks, the government on Friday confirmed that it paused suspending the medical licenses of junior doctors who failed to return to work despite the Health Ministry’s back-to-work order.

In a press briefing, Second Health Vice Minister Park Min-soo said that the current situation “will continue unless a particular [and unexpected] situation arises.”

Park, however, declined to elaborate specifically on how the government plans to impose lenient penalties on junior doctors who have stayed off their jobs to protest the government’s decision to hike the annual medical school admissions quota by 2,000 spots.

At the same time, the government is mulling over ways to bolster regional health care services, such as letting rural hospitals accept larger numbers of junior doctors for training beginning next year.

According to the Health Ministry, medical schools outside the greater Seoul areas currently take in 66 percent of medical school students nationwide. The ratio is expected to increase to 72.4 percent when the government expands the admissions quota, with almost all of the new spots being allocated to medical schools outside of Seoul.

However, hospitals outside of the greater Seoul metropolitan area retain only 45 percent of the country’s doctors for their training period of internships and residencies. This means that most graduates of medical schools outside of the Seoul metropolitan area relocate to hospitals in the capital region for their trainings at hospitals — comprising of a yearlong internship and three years of residency.

“Health authorities agree that the allocation of junior doctors’ to regional hospitals should expand to secure a sufficient number of medical professionals in remote areas,” Park said.

Park added that the government decided to add more traineeship positions at hospitals outside the capital region starting next year.

He also said that the government plans to review the current training program to consider “assigning a quota for the training program proportional to each region’s medical school admission size” in the future.

The government said it will confirm the number of traineeship slots available at each general hospital by November after consulting with junior doctors, relevant academic societies and hospitals.

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