South Korea's Yoon calls on doctors to suggest proposal on medical seats to end protest

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – Nearly six weeks after doctors began a strike over the government's plan to admit more students in medical colleges, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol Monday indicated a compromise.

“If the medical community wants to argue for reducing the size of the increase, it is only right for them to suggest a unified proposal to the government, with a clear and scientific basis, and not take collective action,” Yoon said in an address to the nation ahead of parliamentary elections on April 10.

Thousands of junior doctors and interns have walked-off their job since Feb. 20 to protest the government’s move to add 2,000 more medical seats annually.

Yoon said if the doctors’ groups “bring a more reasonable and rational measure, we can discuss it any time,” Seoul-based Yonhap News reported.

He noted that addition of 2,000 seats was “a minimum increase the government came up with through thorough calculations, and followed sufficient and wide-ranging discussions with the medical community, including doctors' groups, until the decision was reached.”

The protest has triggered crisis in the health sector as hospitals have closed wards, re-arranged working hours and postponed surgeries.

Senior health academics, including professors, have threatened to reduce working hours as part of the ongoing demonstrations.

Yoon, however, said the medical reform plan was “meant for the people” and “improve essential medical services and rural medical services so that people anywhere in the country can receive proper treatment.”

“Currently, there are 115,000 doctors in the country. If their number increases by 2,000 annually starting 10 years from now, only in 2045 will there be an additional 20,000 doctors," he added.