The government is unveiling its latest measures in response to the prolonged walkout by doctors in training engaged in collective action against plans to boost medical school admissions quota.
Our Ahn Sung-jin has the latest.
It’s been five months since trainee doctors left their posts, but the medical community and the government are yet to resolve the prolonged medical dispute.
Amid the continuing back-and-forth, the government is set to hold a meeting this afternoon where the health minister will announce its final measures on those trainee doctors who left their positions.
At the National Assembly hearing for the Health and Welfare Committee last month, the health minister pledged to draft a response plan based on the non-returning resident doctors.
The government’s announcement will mean that training hospitals can finalize their recruitment plans for the second half of the year.
With the recruitment period set to start on September 1st, these hospitals need to know how many trainee doctors will return to their posts so that they can plan how many new residents to recruit.
The government is looking to ease the return policy for those who have resigned so they can apply for the second half of the year.
The current regulations prohibit residents who resign during their training period to return to the same position within a year.
Last month the government withdrew various orders issued to trainee doctors, such as deferring administrative procedures for medical license suspension to allow some leeway for them to return.
Most of these trainee doctors have already failed to fulfill the training period requirements needed to qualify for next year’s specialist certification examinations.
However, as of Thursday last week, only slightly over 1,000 trainee doctors of the 13-thousand trainees were at work.
This is only 8 percent of the total, and only 91 more than before the government postponed the medical license suspension.
It’s been already over a month since the government finalized the increase of the medical school quota but the dispute still shows no signs of ending soon.
Ahn Sung-jin, Arirang News.
Source : Arirang TV, https://www.arirang.com/news/view?id=272964
Arirang TV(public institution's name)'s public work is used according to KOGL