SEOUL, April 24 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s Health and Welfare Ministry expressed regret on Wednesday over medical professors’ decision to take one day off a week, starting next week. The Ministry urged them to engage in dialogue rather than resorting to collective action, amid the prolonged medical vacuum in the country.
An emergency committee of medical teachers announced on Tuesday that they would begin taking a weekly one-day break next week, citing fatigue that had reached its maximum limit, amidst a prolonged strike by trainee doctors.
In response to this decision, Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo stated, “The government regrets the decision of medical professors to take one day off a week while continuing with their promise to resign as planned.”
Approximately 12,000 trainee doctors have been on strike since February 20 in protest of the government’s plan to increase the number of medical students. This has led to major hospitals having to delay or cancel surgeries and other public health services.
In solidarity with the trainee doctors, medical professors also submitted their resignations last month. Park urged the professors to come to the negotiating table with a rational and unified proposal. The government has made efforts, including accepting a request from the presidents of national universities to make the enrollment quota at medical faculties more flexible.
A compromise decision was announced last week, allowing universities to freely decide to increase their places by 50 to 100 percent of what is allocated by the government for next year.
Park emphasized that the government is open to holding one-on-one talks with the medical community, including the emergency committee of medical teachers, and will continue to make efforts for communication.
Despite some teachers planning to leave their positions starting Thursday, Park reiterated that the resignations will not be processed automatically. According to education authorities, there have been no cases where resignation letters have been officially submitted to universities for processing.
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