hankyoreh

Medical professors at the Seoul National University Hospital attend a meeting of the Faculty Association of Seoul National University College on Mar. 6, 16 days into a collective resignation movement from the country's medical interns and residents. (Yonhap News)

Medical residents and interns nationwide, who have been resigning en masse to protest government initiatives to increase the number of medical students, are still clashing with the government, which has issued administrative orders for them to return to work. Meanwhile, a group of medical school professors and medical specialists have issued a statement decrying the current state of healthcare in South Korea. They have also started a petition calling for talks on fundamental healthcare reform, encouraging physicians around the country to sign.
 
More than 5,000 physicians have signed the petition within the three days of its launch.
 
Sixteen professors and specialists from Seoul Asan Medical Center, the Catholic University of Korea Yeouido St. Mary’s Hospital, Severance Hospital, and other medical institutions have released a statement to voice their concern over the healthcare crisis. The petition has been collecting signatures from doctors across the country since Friday.
 
As of 2 pm on Sunday, 5,236 people had sent their signatures in support of the statement, with 3,566 professors and specialists, and 1,670 general practitioners and medical staff at hospitals.
 
They pointed out in the objective of the petition, “Medical residents and interns have left the field while dealing with waves of frustration and powerlessness, and the government is ramming through policies without considering the healthcare catastrophe they could cause. The public is growing increasingly anxious by the day, and even though we are trying our best to cope, we are not sure how long we can hold on.”
 
“The government's heavy-handed response is not only exacerbating distrust in the government and healthcare system,” the statement added, “it is also contributing to the worst case scenario in which medical residents and interns do not return to work.”
 
The statement criticizes the government’s approach to healthcare policies and instead calls for dialogue.
 
“We call on the government to propose measures to prevent the collapse of essential and rural healthcare, and to allow medical residents, interns, and staff working in the field to provide their critical opinions,” the statement said.
 
“If the government remains closed to compromise and solutions, and allows the current situation to continue deteriorating towards a national healthcare crisis,” the statement added, “the people will hold the government strictly accountable for its reckless and irresponsible behavior.”
 
“We [physicians] want nothing more than to see the beginning of real healthcare reform through the collaboration of the people, the medical field, and the government,” they wrote, “and we declare that everyone in the medical field will, with their high standards of professionalism, actively engage heroically to promote self-reflection and change.”
 
Kim Sung-geun, a professor at the department of surgery at the Catholic University of Korea Yeouido St. Mary’s Hospital, is one of the petition’s leaders. 

“We intend to gather the opinions of those who cannot express their opinions through professors’ associations. Most of the opinions we’ve gathered express a willingness to discuss the current situation but also look at which direction we should take to develop in the future,” Kim told the Hankyoreh. 
 
The signatories are also continuing discussions in separate online group chats.
 
The emergency committee of the Faculty Association of Seoul National University College of Medicine is scheduled to convene an emergency general meeting at 5 pm on Monday to discuss possible responses, including collective action, to the government’s push to expand the medical school quota.

By Kim Ga-yoon, staff reporter

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