On April 1, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol delivered a speech to the nation about the government's health reform plan. He called on doctors to come up with a “unified proposal” on appropriately increasing medical school enrollment, with the government ready to negotiate.
According to Yonhap, Mr. Yoon Suk-yeol made this proposal in the context of few signs of breakthrough in resolving the conflict between the government and the medical community over increasing enrollment targets. The speech lasted 50 minutes and was broadcast live from the president's office, ahead of the general election on April 10.
According to the Korean President, the number 2.000 is the minimum increase that the government came up with through careful calculations and based on full and extensive discussions with the medical community, including doctor groups. . If the medical community wants to debate to reduce this number, it should only submit a unified proposal to the government, with a clear and scientific basis, and should not take collective strike action or walk out of work. Mr. Yoon affirmed that if they come up with a more reasonable solution, both sides can discuss it at any time.
About 12.000 doctors have quit their jobs since February 20 to protest the government's plan, while medical professors have submitted mass resignations to participate in collective action. Professors and senior doctors at major hospitals have announced they will reduce working hours starting this week to cope with increasing fatigue due to a shortage of medical staff. Community doctors said similar action would be taken.
According to President Yoon Suk-yeol, Korea currently has 115.000 doctors. Even with an increase of 2.000, it will still take another 10 years for doctors to be trained and enter the workforce. He emphasized that the government's proposed health reform package also promises to invest more than 10 trillion won ($7,4 billion) for practitioners in essential medical fields and in rural areas; establish a legal safety net to better protect physicians from excessive medical malpractice lawsuits.
Faced with concerns that doctors' income will decrease in the future, Mr. Yoon Suk-yeol said that will not happen because in the next 20 years, people's income and health care needs will increase much more.
HUY QUOC
