Representative of trainee doctors’ group expresses negative stance after meeting with Yoon

Park Dan, president of the Korean Association of Medical Doctors, attends a non-commissioner meeting at the Korean Medical Association in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea, 31 March. Yonhap News Agency

After meeting with President Yoon Suk-yeol on April 4, the representative of the Korea Intern Resident Association (KIRA) briefly expressed his negative stance on the outcome of the meeting, saying that "there is no future for health care in Korea." It seems that he did not get satisfactory results from the conversation with the president and that he directly expressed his criticism of the government’s policy. As Yoon decided to meet with the representative of the KIRA in person, there were expectations that the conflict between the government and medical circles over the increase in medical school admissions would be resolved, but in the end, it seems that they failed to come up with a solution to the problem.

Park Dan, the head of an emergency committee at the KIRA, wrote a single sentence on his social media account after the 140-minute meeting at the presidential office in Yongsan, Seoul.

The meeting came two days after Yoon said he would meet with trainee doctors to hear their opinions in person. Since leaving hospitals, they have not responded to any of the government's offers of dialogue at all and have not taken a particular stance.

Attention was paid to the outcome of the meeting between the two as the doctors' collective action has entered its seventh week and the damage caused by the medical disruption has been increasing.

Earlier, Kim Soo-kyeong, a spokesperson of the presidential office, said in a written briefing, "The president decided to respect the position of trainee doctors when discussing medical reforms, including the increase of doctors in the future." Although it was interpreted as accepting some of the KIRA’s demands considering the phrase, "We will respect the position of trainee doctors,” Park's reaction suggests that their demands were not accepted.

Before meeting with Yoon on the day of the meeting, Park said in an announcement to trainee doctors that "nothing has changed from our statement and requests released on February 20,” and that they would make the same demands to the president as before. In an internal announcement, the emergency committee of the KIRA also expressed its position, saying, "If our requests cannot be accepted, we will respond with a statement that says, 'We have talked, but we have not been able to find a solution,' and then lie down again as before.”

On February 20, the KIRA issued a statement saying that the government's plan to increase the number of doctors by 2,000 was unfounded and held the government responsible for neglecting to provide essential medical support and improve the poor working conditions of trainee doctors.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.