Intern association head questioned by police in junior doctors' walkout case

Park Dan, head of the Korean Intern Resident Association, attended police questioning on Wednesday as a witness in a criminal case related to junior doctors' collective walkout.

Park Dan speaks to reporters on his way to the police agency for a questioning session in western Seoul on Wednesday. [NEWS1]

Park Dan, head of the Korean Intern Resident Association, attended police questioning on Wednesday as a witness in a criminal case related to junior doctors' collective walkout.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency summoned Park to its regional investigation unit in Mapo District, western Seoul, to investigate whether incumbent and former senior officials at the Korean Medical Association (KMA) — the nation’s largest doctors' group — meddled in and instigated junior doctors to resign en masse.

Park told reporters that he “does not think the KMA abetted” the junior doctors’ resignations, noting that such actions were their “individual decisions.”

Park also said he “cannot understand the reason for an investigation when more than half a year has passed" since he left the hospital.

“In Korea, fairness and common sense seem to have disappeared, leaving only tyranny and suppression,” Park said. He added that he would cooperate with the investigation out of a sense of duty to protect freedom.

Police have been investigating the allegations against the then-top officials at the KMA on charges of violating the Medical Service Act, interfering with others’ business and aiding and abetting the doctors’ strike.

In February, the Ministry of Health and Welfare filed a criminal complaint with police, stating that incumbent KMA president Lim Hyun-taek, Kim Taek-woo, a former chief of the emergency committee of the KMA and Joo Soo-ho, former president of the KMA, violated the law.

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