Ahn Cheol-soo: "Even if the government accepts the 'Han Dong-hoon mediation plan,' residents will not return"

"Handonghun's Mediation Proposal Has No Significant Meaning"
"Criticism That Raising the Number Increase First Was a Problem"

Ahn Cheol-soo, a member of the People Power Party and a former doctor, stated, "Even if the government accepts the 2026 enrollment suspension plan, students and residents will not return," expressing his view that the medical school enrollment suspension plan proposed by Representative Han Dong-hoon cannot be a solution to the prolonged medical policy conflict.

On the 29th, appearing on YTN Radio, Representative Ahn said, "Representative Han made a sincere effort to change the enrollment numbers by 2026, but even if this were accepted, it would have been problematic." He also emphasized, "Medical students and residents are not talking about the 2026 enrollment numbers; they are talking about the 2025 enrollment numbers." When the host asked if it was a meaningless mediation proposal, Ahn replied, "As of now, yes."

Ahn Cheol-soo, Member of the People Power Party [Photo by Yonhap News]

Earlier, on the 25th, Representative Han proposed at a high-level party-government meeting that the presidential office suspend the increase in medical school enrollment for the 2026 academic year. The plan to expand the medical school enrollment by 1,509 students for the 2025 academic year would be maintained, but the increase for 2026 would be reconsidered. Meanwhile, the presidential office drew a line, stating, "There is no change in position."

Regarding the party-government conflict, Representative Ahn said, "The opposition is fundamentally against increasing enrollment by 2,000 without any scientific basis. Since February this year, we proposed a mediation plan to suspend the increase for about a year, establish a public deliberation committee, and discuss together to calculate a reasonable and scientific increase scale, but this is not happening now."

Furthermore, he stated, "The true medical reform should be solving two problems: the continuous decrease in essential medical services and the decline and underdevelopment of regional healthcare. If that is the case, structural changes should have been made first. However, there seemed to be an optimistic belief that simply increasing the number of doctors by 2,000 would naturally lead them to essential and regional medical services."

Finally, Representative Ahn added, "We should have done that first, and then, if more doctors were still needed, we should have brought up the numbers last. The problem was that the numbers were brought up first. When educational reform was first attempted, the first issue raised was the 'age 5 school entry' number. That completely ruined it, didn't it?"

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