The health ministry said Friday it expects no significant disruptions in medical services despite medical professors taking one day off per week in solidarity with striking junior doctors, and urged the medical community to engage in dialogues.
Medical professors, who are senior doctors, at Asan Medical Center and Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital decided to take a day off on Friday, expressing fatigue from the prolonged walkout of junior doctors.
Some professors at Samsung Medical Center, Severance Hospital, and Seoul National University Hospital also suspended surgeries and treatment for outpatients for a day earlier this week.
“While some medical professors vowed to take a day off on Friday, we expect no major disruptions, including an all-out suspension of treatments,” Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo told reporters.
The five major hospitals play a critical role in treating critically ill patients in the country.
Other regional hospitals, including Chungbuk National University Hospital and Konyang U
niversity Hospital, also participated in the move. The hospitals, however, noted that no outpatient treatments were scheduled for the day.
About 12,000 trainee doctors have left their worksites since late February in protest of the plan to boost the number of medical students by 2,000, causing delays in medical treatments, with some emergency rooms partially limiting their treatment of critically ill patients.
Last week, the government formally launched a presidential committee to resolve the standoff, but doctors boycotted it.
The government has been maintaining that it is also open to one-on-one dialogue with the medical community, but doctors have faced challenges in establishing a unified representative body.
“The government is leaving the spot open for the Korean Medical Association and trainee doctors at the medical reform committee,” Park said, noting that the government is willing to engage in talks “anytime without formal constraints.”
Meanwhile, local universities have finalized their decisions
to increase the combined medical school admission quota for next year by around 1,500 seats, less than the 2,000 slots the government had initially permitted.
The adjustment came after the government allowed schools to flexibly adjust their respective admission quotas for next year within the 50 percent to 100 percent range of their newly allotted quotas.
Source: Yonhap News Agency