The government’s recent announcement to increase medical university admissions quotas has met an intense backlash from young trainee doctors.
Interns and residents at emergency rooms and intensive care units said they would go on a national strike on Aug. 7
The Korean Intern Resident Association (KIRA) said it held an emergency meeting on Saturday. All the participants of the meeting, except for one representative from a teaching hospital, voted in favor of the nationwide walkout.
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| The Korean Intern Resident Association (KIRA) decided on Saturday to go on a nationwide strike on Aug. 7. |
KIRA had initially planned to exclude trainee doctors at the emergency rooms, intensive care units, delivery rooms, and dialysis rooms from a strike.
However, the association scrapped the plan and decided on an all-out strike. Also, KIRA will join the KMA’s nationwide strike by physicians on Aug. 14.
Trainee physicians’ walkout will take place for 24 hours from 7 a.m. on Aug. 7. KIRA declared the 24 hours of the day as “an emergency state of trainee physicians across the nation” and prompted its members to stop their work and join the collective action.
Earlier, KIRA had warned that if the government does not announce any intention to revise its plan by the first week of August, KIRA will go ahead with a strike on Aug. 7.
KIRA President Park Ji-hyun explained the plan for the first collective action to interns and residents on Sunday.
She asked all practicing trainee doctors to hand over all the necessary regular prescriptions and medical records to alternative doctors before a walkout so that the latter can work without a problem.
“The Korean Hospital Association and the government are not listing to our cry. They ignore the quality of medical teaching and training and say that more doctors will solve all the problems,” Park said. “If they know the cause of chronic problems in the medical community, they should deal with it. If they don’t know, they should find it.”
Park said KIRA’s strike was a “resuscitation on the broken medicine,” hoping that all the KIRA members could act as one.
The representatives of interns and residents said expanding medical school quotas and establishing a state-run medical school would worsen the quality of healthcare.
“We can no longer see that this threatens patient safety and the public health,” they said in a statement.
However, the government still emphasized the need for an increase in medical school admissions quotas and proposed a dialogue.
Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said during a regular government Covid-19 response meeting on Sunday that the medical community’s strike would undermine the nation’s effort to control the pandemic, and the public would suffer the damage.
Chung urged doctors to restrain from taking collective action and resolve the problem through talks.
He said he felt sorry about the current circumstances, given many medical professionals’ silent fight against Covid-19.
“Going through Covid-19, many Koreans must have felt that we lack the workforce in public health. Korea is indeed short of doctors, compared to other countries,” Chung said.
He asked the Ministry of Health and Welfare to continue active communication with the medical community.
Even if doctors go on a strike, the government should make response measures for each possible situation so that the public does not suffer damage, he emphasized.
soo331@docdocdoc.co.kr
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