Anxiety grows as professors at 40 med schools vote on strike
Patients urge med professors to keep providing medical treatment, saying they are being ‘thrust into death’
The Medical Professors Association of Korea was set to hold an online meeting Wednesday evening to decide whether to join the oneday strike on June 18 planned by the largest doctors’ group here.
Although it remains uncertain how many will join the strike, professors at 40 medical colleges will likely take part, as they have continuously demanded that the government scrap the planned hike for the 2025 school year and discuss the appropriate increase from scratch.
Also, professors are members of the Korean Medical Association — the largest coalition of doctors’ groups with approximately 140,000 members, mostly comprising private practitioners — which had warned of a “full-fledged battle” against the government to halt the expansion plan.
“Nothing has been made clearcut at this point. The decision will be based on the voices of medical professors during the meeting . ... But many (doctors) have decided (to join the one-day strike). We’ll see how the online meeting turns out later,” an official at the MPAK told The Korea Herald, declining to comment further.
Later in the day, the emergency committee of medical professors at Yonsei University said they would stage an indefinite walkout starting June 27. Yonsei medical professors double as senior doctors at Severance Hospital in Seoul’s
Seodaemun-gu, Gangnam Severance Hospital and Yongin Severance Hospital. However, emergency rooms and intensive care units will remain in operation, as will the treatment of patients.
Their peers at the University of Ulsan will also survey their faculty members until Wednesday afternoon
severely
ill
hospitalized to decide the future course of action.
In addition, the emergency committee of medical professors at the Catholic University of Korea plans to decide on staging indefinite walkouts sometime next week.
Amid a monthslong standoff between the government and the medical community, the association of patients with severe illnesses on Wednesday urged doctors to keep providing medical treatment instead of going on strike.
“Medical professors at Seoul National University are not professors who just make money but are professors at a national university, which is operated by taxpayers’ money,” the association said in a conference held in front of the Seoul National University Hospital in Seoul.
Last week, the emergency committee of SNU and SNUH said it has decided to indefinitely suspend outpatient treatment and surgeries beginning June 17.
The association also referred to the collective action as a “decision that ignores the doctors’ responsibility and duty to the people,” adding that medical professors are joining the strike to wage a turf war for profit.
“Severely ill patients are falling into despair, letting go of the hope to survive and being in fear of death every day . ... With the strike, severely ill patients are being thrust into death,” the group said, expressing hopes that medical professors would backtrack from going on an indefinite walkout.