Health and Medical Workers' Union: "Government Should Stop Hesitating, Medical Association Should Stop Being Obstinate"

The Health and Medical Workers' Union held a press conference on the 21st at the Yeongdeungpo-gu Labor Union Hall, urging the government and medical associations to expand medical school quotas, establish public medical schools, and introduce a regional doctor system.
[Photo by Health and Medical Workers' Union]

The Health and Medical Workers' Union held a press conference on the 21st at the Yeongdeungpo-gu Labor Council building, urging the government and medical associations to expand medical school quotas, establish public medical schools, and introduce a regional doctor system.

Chairperson Na Sun-ja pointed out, "The government has set a policy to expand medical school quotas, but the problem is that it is unclear how much to increase, where to allocate the quotas, and through what process to proceed," and added, "Since 82.7% of the public supports expanding medical school quotas, 77% support establishing public medical schools, and 83.4% support introducing the regional doctor system, the Ministry of Health and Welfare should decide the scale of quota expansion through social dialogue with civil society, labor organizations, and the public, without being swayed by the Korean Medical Association."

Chairperson Na also urged the Korean Medical Association, saying, "Instead of ignoring the public's demands and acting stubbornly, think about your colleagues suffering from manpower shortages and the sick public." The union announced plans to form a task force (TF) team related to expanding the number of doctors to investigate the reality of medical collapse caused by doctor shortages, cases threatening patient safety, illegal medical practices, excessive doctor wage increases, and wage gaps with other professions, and to widely inform the public and media after expert discussions.

Participants speaking at the scene testified to cases such as ▲ recommending acquaintances to visit hospitals other than the one they work at due to lack of attending doctors ▲ public hospitals left empty after patients and doctors left following the lifting of COVID-19 dedicated hospital status ▲ illegal medical cases where physician assistants (PAs) nurses perform doctors' duties due to about 25% shortage of doctors at the only tertiary general hospital in a province, demanding a large-scale expansion of medical school quotas to address the shortage of doctors. Choi Kyu-jin, Secretary-General of the Association of Doctors for Humanism, stated, "How to increase medical school quotas is more important than how much to increase," and demanded, "It is necessary to expand public hospitals significantly to support policies for training doctors under national responsibility and prioritizing placement in regions with doctor shortages and public medical fields, as well as for training and deploying public doctors."

The union also released the results of a 'Public Opinion Survey on Expanding Doctor Workforce' that day. According to the survey, 57.7% of respondents answered "very necessary" and 25.0% answered "necessary" to the question, "Should medical school quotas be expanded to recruit doctors to work in medically underserved areas and public medical institutions?" A total of 82.7% responded that medical school quotas should be increased. To the question, "Should medical school quotas be expanded mainly at national and public universities to train doctors in non-metropolitan areas and expand public medical services?" 47.5% answered "very necessary" and 35.8% answered "somewhat necessary," showing 83.3% overall support. Additionally, 77.0% answered "necessary" to the question, "Should public medical schools be established in areas without national universities?"

This survey was conducted by Sudden Post, a professional polling agency, on behalf of the Health and Medical Workers' Union from the 4th to the 6th of this month via landline and mobile phone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide. The sampling error is ±3.10 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.