The 28th Medical Cooperation Council Meeting Ends in Crisis... Medical Side Declares "Temporary Suspension of Medical-Government Talks"

Medical Association "Will Resume Legislative Negotiations When Unilateral Communication Changes"
Government "Unilateral Communication Is the Medical Association's One-Sided Claim"

The 28th Medical Issues Council meeting ended in a fiasco as the announcement of the scale of medical school quota expansion is reportedly imminent. The medical community declared that it would temporarily suspend negotiations with the government until the government changes its unilateral communication approach.

Yang Dong-ho, head of the negotiation team for the Korean Medical Association (Chairman of the Gwangju Medical Association Delegates Council), is reading a statement at the 28th Medical Issues Council meeting held at 10:10 a.m. on the 6th at BizHub Seoul Center in Jung-gu, Seoul.
Photo by Choi Tae-won peaceful1@

On the 6th at 10 a.m., the government and the Korea Medical Association (KMA) held the 28th Medical Issues Council meeting at the BizHub Seoul Center in Jung-gu, Seoul. The meeting was convened at the request of the Ministry of Health and Welfare the previous day. Initially, no additional meetings were planned before the Lunar New Year holiday.

At around 10:10 a.m., Yang Dong-ho, head of the KMA negotiation team and chairman of the Gwangju Medical Association Delegates Council, entered the meeting room and expressed dissatisfaction with the government's communication method, saying, "I am not here to hold a meeting today but to deliver a statement. I will only read the statement."

Yang stated, "The government is trying to unilaterally notify the Medical Issues Council today about the number of medical school quota expansions and is preparing to submit the agenda on medical school quota expansion at the Health and Medical Policy Deliberation Committee scheduled for the afternoon." He added, "The KMA condemns and strongly criticizes the government's unilateral notification of medical school quota expansion as the height of arbitrary policy and such autocratic behavior by the government."

He continued, "Although the KMA pointed out various side effects and problems, it respected the government's proposal and has continuously cooperated to establish desirable medical school policies. We proposed TV debates to help the public understand and repeatedly suggested having all-night, conclusive discussions if necessary. However, the government completely ignored the medical community's proposals and unilaterally notified quota numbers without scientific and objective evidence. This trampled the trust of the medical community in an instant," he emphasized.

The KMA also expressed concerns about the expected side effects of increasing medical school quotas. Yang said, "If the sincere voices of the medical community are ignored, it will face strong resistance from 140,000 doctors and medical students nationwide." He added, "The government alone will bear full responsibility for the collapse of Korea's healthcare and future, including the decline in the quality of medical education, increased burden of medical expenses on the public, and accelerated concentration in certain medical schools, caused by the unilateral medical school quota policy pushed forward without communication with the medical community."

After the KMA negotiation team left immediately following the statement, the government expressed regret. Jeong Kyung-sil, Director of Health and Medical Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, told reporters, "The claim that this is a meeting to receive a unilateral notification is completely untrue. We strongly regret the behavior of not even sitting at the discussion table while calling for sincere discussions." She added, "Out of respect for the medical community, we have operated a separate Medical Issues Council and held 28 discussions. We have continuously discussed issues such as fee increases, reduction of medical accident burdens, and improvement of working conditions, which are prerequisites for the medical school quota expansion demanded by the medical community. We also announced the results of discussions with the medical community on essential medical policy packages."

She further stated, "Claiming that it is a unilateral push just because there was no agreement with the medical organizations will not be acceptable to the public. The claim that the government made a unilateral decision is completely untrue and is a one-sided assertion by the medical organizations."

Due to this fiasco, the Medical Issues Council meeting is expected to be temporarily suspended. Yang criticized, "Suddenly contacting us yesterday and asking for a meeting at 10 a.m. today can only be interpreted as considering us as mere props for the announcement of medical school quota expansion." He added that negotiations would be temporarily suspended and said, "If the government abandons its unilateral communication style, we are ready to resume negotiations."

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