Seoul, January 9 (IANS). South Korea’s Health Ministry hopes to hold talks with the new head of the country’s top doctors’ lobby group amid a long-running impasse over medical reform.
According to the report of Yonhap news agency, Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo said this during a meeting. His statement came a day after the election of Kim Taek-woo as the new head of the Korean Medical Association.
Kim has been vocal about his aggressive stance against increasing medical school quotas.
“We hope there will be face-to-face talks between the government and the medical community to quickly resolve the conflict,” Park said.
“The public wants the normalization of the country’s medical system, and I believe the government and the medical community are in consensus on this,” Park said.
Along with this, Kim has also stressed the need for the government to bring active changes in its stance.
Kim said, “The president who pushed this policy is currently absent, and it has been discovered that the medical reform plan had flaws. The government should give up its stubbornness and end this policy.”
Thousands of trainee doctors have been absent from their workplaces since February last year due to mass resignations. The medical community is urging the government to reconsider the planned increase in the medical school quota.
However, despite the challenging conditions, local emergency services continued without any major disruption.
The government has decided to increase the number of seats in medical schools to 1,500 by 2025, part of a broader plan to increase the total number of seats to about 2,000 in the next five years to address the shortage of doctors.
–IANS
MKS/AS
