South Korean Health Minister meets for the first time with striking doctors

He South Korean Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong has met with representatives of the thousands of trainee doctors who have been on strike for three weeks for the first time since the strike began, as reported today by the second vice minister of the field, Park Min-soo.

Park told the media that the closed-door meeting took place on Monday and did not want to add more details about it.

The second vice minister of Health He added that there will be more meetings between both parties.

Around 93% of the country's 13,000 trainee doctors have joined the strike in protest against the conservative Executive's plans. Yoon Suk-yeol to increase the number of places in medical schools by 2,000 a year.

Since resident doctors make up around 40% of the staff of large Seoul hospitalsthe largest in the country, these medical centers are being forced to suspend around half of the scheduled surgeries and refer emergency patients to other centers.

He Government has begun sending notices to medical trainees ordering them to return to work and warning them that if they do not comply, they face possible suspension of their license for at least three months.

Even so, the warnings have not served to intimidate the group and on Monday, Medicine professors at Seoul National University (SNU) announced that they would present their resignation en bloc next week if the Government fails to offer “reasonable progress” in the negotiations to resolve the strike.

In turn, teachers from other centers such as Catholic University of Korea or Seoul Chungang University They have threatened to take even more forceful measures.

The Executive argues that it is necessary to increase the annual places in medical schools by 2,000 to address the shortage of doctors, especially in rural areas and in areas such as pediatrics, obstetrics or cardiothoracic surgery.

But the doctors denounce that the decision has been unilateral and that the increase should be 350 places so that it does not affect the quality of training and service and that it should be invested in certain areas and reinforce the legal protection of health workers.

The Asian country has not increased places in Medicine in 27 years and is one of the OECD countries with the lowest number of doctors per 1,000 inhabitants (2.46), only behind Mexico, Poland, Colombia and Türkiye.

EFE