Medical professors to decide whether to resign by Friday

Korea is at a critical juncture in its standoff between doctors and the government, as professorial medical doctors will decide whether to resign en masse by Friday.

Medical professionals walk inside a general hospital located in Seoul on Thursday, amid a prolonged standoff between doctors and the government. The impasse was caused by a governmental decision to hike admission quota at medical colleges by 2,000 seats starting next year, and medical professors will decide whether to resign en masse Friday. [YONHAP]

Korea is at a critical juncture in its standoff between doctors and the government, as professorial medical doctors will decide whether to resign en masse by Friday.

A nationwide coalition of professorial boards at 19 medical colleges will determine Friday whether to take collective action through filing resignations.

Faculties from Seoul National University and University of Ulsan resolved to submit resignations as of Thursday. Additionally, more than 83 percent of Wonkwang University’s medical faculties – 99 out of 119 – said they would resign if any punishments were levied on its students and trainee doctors.

“The government will try its utmost best to prevent professorial resignations,” Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo said during a briefing on Wednesday. “[The health care sector] cannot maintain the ‘emergency mode of operation’ after professors withdraw from the hospitals.”

On Thursday, the government announced its plan to inject 1.3 trillion won ($987 million) to enhance treatment for critically ill pediatric patients. It will also lower hospitalization costs for babies less than two years old.

“The government will make sure child patients no longer face difficulties in receiving treatments on weekends and at night,” Interior Minister Lee Sang-min said during a Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters meeting on the same day.

Lee promised to launch “pan-governmental efforts that will employ all available resources to provide emergency care centering critically ill and emergency patients and to minimize medical chaos."

His remarks seem to show the government’s unbending stance on its “medical reform” to fix “abnormalities in the [current] medical system.”

Interior Minister Lee Sang-min, center, presides over a meeting at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters in Seoul on Thursday. [YONHAP]

To tackle unbalanced medical care accessibility across the country, the government will boost regional hospitals’ capabilities to attract local patients. Currently, regional patients tend to go to Seoul-based hospitals that are agonizing under patient overflow.

The government will develop a matrix reflecting each region’s supply and demand factors for medical services, such as the availability of medical personnel. The tabulation will be used to gauge the proper level of medical insurance fee, which will be given to the hospitals and medical professionals.

In this scheme, medical centers in suburban and rural areas will be additionally subsidized. The hospitals can use these funds to hire highly skilled professionals and enhance service quality.

The government plans to begin its research for matrix development next month with the goal of applying it in the second half of this year.

Hospitals managed by national public universities will bolster their clinical, research and training competencies. The government will scale up investment toward research and development and amend the regulations on research funds. It will revise and legislate such laws to put them into effect by next year.

The government will transfer the oversight authorities of those hospitals from the Education Ministry to the Health Ministry.

An occupational organization representing trainee doctors sent a letter to the International Labour Organization (ILO) requesting its emergency intervention, according to the Korean Intern Resident Association (KIRA) on Wednesday. The KIRA said that the government should “stop coercing junior doctors to provide compulsory labor by wielding state power.”

On Thursday, the Korean Labor Ministry issued a press release, stating that “trainee junior doctors are not subject to conventions of the ILO, and the governmental work-resumption orders are legitimate measures for the sake of public safety.”

The government said that junior doctors’ services do not constitute compulsory labor as their duties are to protect public health and security.

A college lecture hall at a medical college in Daegu is empty on Friday as students filed a leave of absence to protest against the government's decision to expand enrollment quota at medical colleges. [YONHAP]

The chasm between medical students and the government continues to grow.

On Thursday, the Education Ministry said the students’ valid leave of absence totaled to 6,051, accounting for 32.2 percent of the 18,793 medical students counted last April.

According to university insider sources on Wednesday, protesting freshmen in Hallym University’s medical college will be flunked in their coursework.

A professor teaching anatomy warned 83 students about failing grades because they missed classes over longer than three weeks per the school’s ordinance. The course began on Jan. 19.

“The university will adjust the academic calendar to prevent holding its students back,” a collegiate official from Hallym University said. “It is now maneuvering other teaching options such as online supplementary classes.”

BY LEE SOO-JUNG, HAN YOUNG-HYE [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]