Government says med school quota hike can change with 'reasonable grounds'

Interior Minister Lee Sang-min said Wednesday that the government’s policies on the medical school admission quota hike are “always open and can change for the better if more reasonable grounds are provided.”

Medical profesionals walk inside a general hospital in Seoul on Wednesday, 44 days after junior doctors filed their resignations en masse and staged a walkout. [NEWS1]

Interior Minister Lee Sang-min said Wednesday that the government’s policies on the medical school admission quota hike are “always open and can change for the better if more reasonable grounds are provided.”

“The government’s medical reform and efforts to normalize health care services are to safeguard people’s lives and safety,” Lee said during a Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters meeting.

The government will decide how many professors to hire at each medical school based on a survey answered by universities. The authorities will consider “the number of admission seats increased at each school” and “the demand for essential health care services” in each region.

“The government is smoothly preparing measures to supply 1,000 full-time medical professors until 2027,” Lee said.

“The authorities will secure a profound amount of [financial and physical] resources for medical reform, which includes securing a sufficient number of doctors and boosting medical schools' competencies for regional and essential health care access," Lee said.

He said the resources will also be spent for "developing a safety net related to medical accidents" and "compensating doctors serving in essential medical fields" like high-risk surgeries and emergency medicine.

The minister urged the “medical sector — including junior doctors — to proactively vocalize their opinions to boost the competencies of the health care industry and medical studies and properly support essential and regional medical fields."

Lee said their participation can help elevate the status of the Korean medical industry to become "the world's best."

On the same day, the country’s largest doctors’ group, the Korean Medical Association, “welcomed President Yoon Suk Yeol’s invitation to junior doctors for a direct and in-person dialogue,” which they added was an idea “proposed by the organization last week.”

According to the statement from the presidential office on Tuesday, Yoon is willing “to meet junior doctors who are involved in collective action to hear their views directly.”

Meanwhile, the Korean court is clearing a path for the government to roll out its 2,000-seat expansion plan for medical schools’ admissions, thwarting the medical sector’s desire to deter the government’s move.

The Seoul Administrative Court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal filed by junior doctors and medical students to suspend the government’s execution of the quota hike. This comes a day after the court quashed a similar request from medical professors.

The court said it ruled to close the case because the request did not properly qualify for a court review, citing the same reasoning behind Tuesday's decision.

Amid the ceaseless medical void, the government let public health centers provide telemedicine services starting Wednesday.

The government implemented the services to improve medical service accessibility in remote areas where hundreds of public health doctors left to cover labor shortages in general hospitals caused by the junior doctors' walkout.

“A total of 246 public health centers and 1,341 branches will offer telemedicine services,” the Health Ministry said the same day, adding that “some localities such as South Jeolla expressed concerns over the medical void.”

Patients with light symptoms can receive diagnoses and medication prescriptions through telemedicine services.

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