Doctors defend colleague accused of blacklisting non-strikers

Lim Hyun-taek, president of the Korea Medical Association, speaks to reporters on Saturday after meeting with a trainee doctor arrested for blacklisting doctors who refused to participate in the nationwide walkout. (Yonhap)

Several doctors in the ongoing medical strike against government reform defended a trainee doctor who is currently under criminal investigation for making and distributing a blacklist of physicians not participating in the prolonged walkout.

Lim Hyun-taek, president of the Korea Medical Association, said called Jeong "a victim" of the government.

"Both the doctor who has been arrested and put behind bars, and everyone who was harmed after being on the list, are victims of the government. ... The government is destroying the relationship between the doctors," he told the reporters Saturday, a day after Jeong was arrested.

Jeong created a list in July of names, phone numbers and other personal information of doctors who did not join the strike. The Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for him based on allegations that it was distributed with malicious intent, violating an anti-stalking law.

But a number of doctors groups across the country have defended Jeong's action, saying the government is “repressing” or “infringing upon the human rights” of people they say are making small acts of resistance.

The Seoul Medical Association said in a statement Saturday that his actions were merely resisting government measures that were "above the law," accusing Yoon Suk Yeol administration of "pretending to want to talk and threatening via prosecution and police behind our backs."

The Gyeonggi-do Medical Association on the same day held a protest in Seoul saying the arrest was an infringement of human rights.

"Freedom of expression are basic components in a democratic society, and (the government) stomping on such small degree of expression is a level of human rights violation on par with that of North Korea," the group said.

While majority of the doctors expressed support for Jeon, some doctors have criticized him for blacklisting his colleagues who only stayed on the job to care for the patients.

Kang Hee-kyung, who leads to emergency committee of Seoul National University's medical professors, decried the blacklists as "shameful actions" which brings to question whether or not the mass walkout of the trainee doctors was based on their own free will.

The recent medical strike has led to a countrywide shortage of medical staff, with the medical circles and the government stuck in a standoff since February. President Yoon Seok Yeol has been seeking to significantly increase the number of enrollment quotas for medical schools across the country.

In light of the ongoing strike, there have been increasing reports of emergency patients being turned away by hospitals due to lack of physicians who can care for them. Last month, a toddler was turned away by emergency rooms at 11 hospitals who said they did not have necessary staff to attend to her conditions.

She eventually got the treatment after an hour in an ambulance, but the delay aggravated her condition and the child has been in a coma for over a month.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)