I am afraid that this confrontation will become a protracted battle that will drain the patience of South Korean society and the public.
▲On March 11, 2024 local time, medical staff in a university hospital in Incheon, South Korea. Photo/IC photo
Text | Pottery short room
According to CCTV news, the online general meeting held by the Emergency Countermeasures Committee of Professors of the National Medical University of South Korea on April 23 local time decided that the professors of the National Medical University of South Korea will resign as planned from the 25th of this month and will be suspended for one day a week from next week.
Previously, the Emergency Response Committee of the Korean Medical Association discussed the Korean government's proposal to allow medical universities to independently adjust the size of their enrollment within 50% to 100% of the government's original enrollment expansion. The Emergency Countermeasures Committee said after the meeting that the government's proposal was not a "fundamental solution to the problem" and therefore could not be accepted by the medical association.
As professors at South Korean medical schools announced that they were about to officially join the ranks of the government's "expanded health care reform", people began to talk more and more about a crucial topic: Can Yoon Suk-yeol, who has just suffered a crushing defeat in the parliamentary election, withstand the pressure?
Medical school professor "begins to resign"
Since February 20, in order to resist the Yoon Suk-yeol government's "medical reform" plan to significantly increase the number of students enrolled in South Korean medical schools, the total number of trainee doctors, more than 13,000, accounting for about 3 to 40% of the total number of doctors in South Korea, began to resign and strike widely. The government responded by refusing to accept resignations, revoking industry certificates, and forcing military service.
There was strong public support for the government's "health care reform" to reduce the difficulty and waiting time for medical treatment, only to wait for longer waiting times and a worse medical experience.
The society resented the most high-ranking doctors for their high salaries, so at the beginning of the confrontation between the government and doctors, the public almost overwhelmingly supported the former. But after the situation became more protracted, they found that it was not the high-level doctors who were really well-paid on the front line of the struggle, but the trainee doctors whose income was only half that of ordinary white-collar workers, and the work intensity was surprisingly high.
On March 16, the situation finally changed, and the professors of the Korean medical school threatened to take it personally.
On the same day, professors from 20 medical universities and 16 medical departments of comprehensive universities nationwide (a total of 40 medical universities and faculties nationwide) held an online meeting in the name of the "Emergency Committee of Faculty of Medicine". After the meeting, the general convener announced that he would resign and go on a "partial strike" from March 25 in solidarity with the "reasonable struggle" of the trainee doctors.
In South Korea, medical school professors are not only responsible for teaching medical schools, but also for all high-level specialists in the medical sector, and they are at the top of the "pyramid" of the Korean medical and health system.
Trainee doctors have generally resigned, gone on strike, and the government can also mobilize the military health system to intervene and other extraordinary measures to "stiffen up", and the treatment of general patients and emergency patients will be affected, but the treatment of incurable diseases that have been scheduled will not be greatly affected. If medical professors join the fight, the entire South Korean health pyramid will be crumbling and precarious.
However, the professors' protest is clearly a "slow fuse". They submitted a resignation letter, which is usually tacitly stated by the Korean workplace "business rules" that "if you do not respond one month after acceptance, it will take effect automatically", and there was no widespread aggressive countermeasures such as strikes and "resignation effective immediately".
However, on April 22, senior officials from the Ministry of Health and Welfare of South Korea once again "set the fire" together. At a press conference, the second deputy minister claimed that "the resignation will not take effect automatically unless it is accepted by the president of the university, and the reality is that none of them will be accepted".
At the same time, the Yoon Suk-yeol administration announced the creation of a "special committee on health care reform," which is planned to be composed of officials from the presidential council, the Ministry of Health, and other relevant ministries, plus about 20 experts, to discuss "how to promote health care reform."
According to the established plan, the 2025 medical school enrollment quota will be finalized at the end of April, although there were rumors that "the government may withdraw the enrollment expansion plan" at the time of the unfavorable election, but the latest "briefing" shows that the Yoon Suk-yeol government intends to "head the iron" to the end.
The latest plan is just a "small repair" on the basis of the original plan, which may symbolically reduce the total number of enrollment expansion, or the total amount may remain unchanged. Each medical department is authorized to accept the "small quota" of new assignments to its own departments "at its discretion", which "can be varied between 50% and 100%".
As one anonymous doctor put it online, the government "plays a salesman's trick into choosing between 'paying in installments or paying in a lump sum,' when in fact there is an option not to buy."
As a result, the resignations of the medical school professors "officially began on April 25 as planned" and said that "if the government does not have a policy to accept our resignation, we will continue".
The Korean Medical Association (KMA) and the Korean Association of Trainees and Residents (KIRA) have announced a boycott of the government-led "Special Committee on Healthcare Reform," which means they have shown their cards to discuss with the government only "whether to expand enrollment" and not "how much" with the latter.
▲On April 1, 2024 local time, in Gwangju, South Korea, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol delivered a "talk to the people" on the contradiction of South Korea's medical reform a few days ago. Diagram / IC photo
Neither side can get off the stage
Previously, many analysts believed that the reason why the Yoon Suk-yeol government released the winner of the "expansion of medical reform" despite the controversy, and did not hesitate to use an iron fist to push it, was that it found that this policy led to dissatisfaction, and it has become a common sentiment in South Korean society regardless of factions, camps, and classes. Yoon hopes to boost sluggish public support and ensure that the ruling party and the right wing gain something in the April 10 parliamentary elections.
Now that the dust has settled on the parliamentary elections and the ruling party and the right-wing party have suffered a fiasco, the government should learn from the painful experience and change course, at least loosen the "expansion of health care reform" that has proved to be unhelpful to the election, and ease the contradictions and antagonisms.
But the dust of the election has only been settled for half a month, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the pioneer of the "expansion of medical reform", has once again "sounded the gong challenge", and the professors of medical schools who have been thundering and not raining before have finally come to an end, what is going on?
The Yoon Suk-yeol government is also forced to do so. Due to the fiasco in the parliamentary election, many senior officials below the prime minister and the chief convener of the ruling party resigned, and although the senior officials of the Ministry of Health and Welfare were basically out of the matter, they were also greatly shocked and impacted, and deeply felt that their future and the fate of "expanding medical reform" have been tied together.
After the National Assembly election, Yoon Suk-yeol only emphasized "insufficient communication" in his "apology" to the South Korean people, but said that he would "better promote reform", indicating that he does not want to give up all "Yoon Kee reforms" including "expanding enrollment and medical reform", but only intends to escort "better reform" by "improving communication".
As the so-called outline is clear, Yoon Suk-yeol's outline has been established, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare's "chariots and horses" can only move on the chessboard set by Yoon Suk-yeol.
And medical school professors don't have a choice. Since the start of the war, trainee doctors at the bottom of the "pyramid" in terms of income and status have been "killed" and have been sanctioned and punished by the government. However, the biggest victims of the "expansion of medical reform" and the professors of medical schools who really enjoy the honor of "high salary and high status" are "running and dancing" and enjoying the "results" of trainee doctors, which is naturally unjustifiable, and the struggle will be inevitable.
It is against this backdrop that medical school professors are taking advantage of the "voluntary resignation convention" to play a month-long time gap. The month was about to expire, but the government was unmoved. The professors of the medical school continued to use the slow knife of "starting to resign" and "taking a day off every week" to cut the flesh, with the aim of taking advantage of the imminent "deadline" at the end of April to continue to put pressure on the government.
▲Data map: A photo of the Korea Central Medical Center taken in Seoul, South Korea. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
The confrontation threatens to become a protracted war
April 25 is the scheduled launch date of the government-led "Special Committee on Health Care Reform", and this provocative day is obviously destined not to usher in a "family portrait", but only to become another "word hall" of the government. Yoon Suk-yeol, the chief secretary of social welfare, made it clear that it is the government's "greatest sincerity" to allow all faculties to enjoy "flexibility under the expansion quota", and the "expansion of enrollment" itself is absolutely non-negotiable.
On the same day, the medical school professors symbolically declared that "if you don't negotiate, don't negotiate", and everyone will see.
The problem is that Yoon Suk-yeol has nothing to fear — the parliamentary election has passed, the presidential election will not be until 2028, and according to the rules, he can no longer run.
On the one hand, Yoon Suk-yeol "does not care about the killing"; on the other hand, the professors of the medical school have trainee doctors as "cannon fodder", and both sides "can afford to spend it". I am afraid that this confrontation will become a protracted battle that will drain the patience of South Korean society and the public.
However, South Korea's right-wing and its ruling party may not be able to afford it. Medical school professors have traditionally been right-wing voters, and continuing to drain them will only be more detrimental to the right. Yoon Suk-yeol does not have to think about re-election, but the right wing and the ruling party still have to "play". This undoubtedly casts another shadow on Yin Xiyue's "expansion of medical reform".
Written by Tao Short Room (Columnist)
Editor / Chi Daohua
Proofreading / Diyan Chen
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