Doctor-turned-politician Ahn Cheol-soo: "We must improve internal and external oxygen levels and precisely present the shortage of doctors"
Essential Medical Staff Decline
Local Healthcare on the Brink of Collapse
"Simulations Must Be Precise"
Ahn Cheol-soo, a member of the People Power Party and a former doctor, urged residents leaving the medical field in protest against the increase in medical school quotas to “stop collective actions that could threaten patients' lives.”
On the 22nd, Ahn appeared on KBS Radio’s ‘Jeon Jong-cheol’s Jeonggyeok Sisa’ and said, “(Medical students) take the Hippocratic Oath at their graduation ceremony, pledging ‘I will prioritize the health of patients,’ and become doctors. The medical community should stop collective actions, and I hope the government, using precise data, can resolve the most important public medical issues in our country through dialogue this time.”
Regarding the government’s plan to increase medical school quotas by 2,000 students annually, he said, “I support increasing the medical school quotas,” but added, “Specifically, the reason why doctors avoid ‘nae-oi-san-so’ (internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics) is because the medical fees are too low, so the fees need to be reasonably adjusted to a certain level.”
He continued, “I hope the government changes the order of its claims,” advising, “The essential medical workforce in ‘nae-oi-san-so’?internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, and pediatrics?is currently decreasing drastically, and local healthcare is on the brink of collapse. If the government raised the issue of increasing medical school quotas to solve these problems, that would have been better.”
He added, “Simply increasing the quota by 1,000, 2,000, or 3,000 without detailed planning makes people suspect it is a haphazard approach,” and said, “It would be more persuasive to the public and doctors to present detailed figures through precise simulations, for example, stating ‘there is a shortage of 1,454 doctors.’”
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Regarding Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, criticizing the government’s plan to expand medical school quotas as a “political show,” Ahn said, “I hope Lee shows a progressive attitude by working positively with the government and ruling party to solve this issue rather than criticizing.” He pointed out, “This issue should have been resolved long ago. The medical school quota has been frozen for over 20 years, during which the number of essential medical personnel has decreased and local healthcare has shrunk, but leaving this problem as it is amounts to neglect.”
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