President Na’s Meeting with Park, Neunghoo, the Minster of Health and Welfare
The KHMU’s Call for a Special Body dedicated to
Healthcare Personnel Issues On
September 8, the President Na Soon-ja at the Korean Health and Medical Workers’
Union met with the Minister Park, Neunghoo at the Ministry of Health and
Welfare and called to establish a special body on healthcare personnel to
resolve the low staffing level issues. “Medical
doctors collectively refused to see
patients (strike), so, the government’s plan to increase medical students and
establish public medical schools was held back at the moment. This rollback of
the policy clearly brings about problems in many aspects. Hence, the policy
should be revisited soon again, but, this time, Korean people, not only the
medical doctors, should be a critical part of the discussions with their voices
being heard at the society level, provided that the number of medical doctors
should increase anyways,” said Na. She
put an emphasis on two suggestions in particular: ▲ increase the number of
medical students in national and public medical schools ▲ expand the
government’s budget to establish and reinforce public medical organizations. She
also pointed that nurses are driven to work on what medical doctors are
supposed to do, that is, “illegal medical treatment” due to shortage of doctors, hence the problem should be
solved as early as possible.