Over 5,000 Hospital Professors and Others Join Solidarity Signature for "Medical Reform National Declaration"

Doctors who announced the declaration on the current situation stated that "over 5,000 fellow professors and specialists have joined the solidarity signature campaign."

According to the medical community on the 10th, 16 professors and specialists from eight hospitals, including Seoul Asan Hospital and Severance Hospital, have revealed their affiliations and real names and opened an online site called 'Declaration Warning of Medical Collapse' to collect solidarity signatures through an electronic survey method.

Medical staff are walking in a large hospital in Seoul. [Image source=Yonhap News]

According to the site operators, as of 4 p.m. that day, 3,523 professors and specialists affiliated with training hospitals nationwide and 1,657 other affiliated doctors participated in the signature campaign. The total number of participants, excluding duplicate submissions, is 5,180.

In the declaration posted under the name of 'Professors and Supervising Specialists Affiliated with Training Hospitals Nationwide,' they stated, "The current government's unilateral medical policy implementation is throwing South Korea's excellent medical system into confusion," and warned, "If the situation is not resolved, the lives and health of the entire nation will be seriously threatened." "We urge all stakeholders to regain reason and for the government and medical representatives to engage in sincere and open discussions to derive reasonable solutions together."

The declaration also included demands that the government listen to the voices from essential medical fields and create policies for them, and maintain an open attitude toward discussions on policies including medical school quotas. To professors and specialists at training hospitals nationwide, they appealed for solidarity, saying, "We hope all medical staff members unite and participate in overcoming the current crisis."

The professors and specialists who participated in the declaration claimed, "We are doing our utmost every day on the front lines for patients, but we have already reached our limits. The worst medical catastrophe is imminent." Addressing the public, they said, "As the older generation, we bear responsibility for the current state of the medical community. The responsibility for the current medical chaos should rightly be directed at us, the older generation, not the residents."

Furthermore, they added, "We will think more deeply to ensure that the public can use medical services safely and properly and take the lead in genuine medical reform," and "We understand the disappointment felt toward doctors. Please view the situation calmly and objectively."

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