Yoon Seok-yeol's 'Doctor Shortage' to 'Polarization' Medical Reform Takes a Turn

Yoon Seok-yeol's 'Doctor Shortage' to 'Polarization' Medical Reform Takes a Turn

 

President Yoon Seok-yeol told Singapore's 'Straits Times' that 'concentration of medical services' is medical reform, making a sharp turn from the 'increasing medical schools to address doctor shortage', a controversial issue that has been extremely chaotic for over a year, and defined medical groups and residents as 'opponents of expanding essential medical services in regions that are victims of concentration.'
On the 8th, President Yoon told 'Straits Times' that "the world's best medical service is threatening its sustainability due to gaps and concentration, and this is the key reason why I started medical reform."

On the 8th, Health and Welfare Minister Cho Kyu-hong said during the National Assembly's state audit that "while hospitalizations and surgeries, including emergency treatment, have decreased at general hospitals, general hospitals have increased," and "the emergency medical system is focusing on patients with severe symptoms. There is not as much confusion as we fear." Minister Cho then responded, “What we are trying to do is to expand essential medical care and regional medical care,” and defined medical associations and residents as “opponents of the expansion of essential regional medical care” for their opposition to the government policy for six months.
President Yoon’s policy of “prioritizing the blocking of oversupply of emergency supplies at large hospitals to prevent oversupply” has made the “emergency” field, the frontline of medical care, determined by the “oversupply-induced oversupply” policy, which is the last-priority policy for medical services, thereby acknowledging “oversupply-induced oversupply.”
President Yoon’s “oversupply” reform is a side effect of “oversupply” in “overmedical care,” and residents opposed the rapid increase in medical school enrollment, saying that “the large-scale short-term increase in the supply of doctors” “reinforces the concentration of popular specialties with good marketability,” and resigned, demanding “priority supplementation of the medical system, then increase.” On the first night of the Chuseok holiday, President Yoon told emergency medical staff at the Uijeongbu St. Mary’s Hospital Emergency Medical Center that “the government’s fee policy does not sufficiently reflect the difficulties of the medical field,” and six days earlier (August 29) at a press conference, he said, “There are many problems, but the emergency medical system is still operating smoothly.”
The presidential office then attempted to “directly supervise emergency rooms” by sending one first-class presidential secretary to each emergency medical field in 17 metropolitan cities and provinces across the country.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Health and Welfare began the “Higher-level General Hospital Restructuring Support Project” on the 1st, investing 10 trillion won in the budget to transform higher-level general hospitals into specialists and centers on severe diseases, and began a “patient direction change strategy” by having bureaucrats, not medical institutions, define “severe cases.” The Ministry of Health and Welfare attempted to block patients with severe illness from entering general hospitals with financial policies by building a barrier policy to prevent them from entering emergency rooms, and the medical system centered on general hospitals was applied first as the center of ‘blocking concentration.’
Regarding the visit to the emergency room of Uijeongbu St. Mary’s Hospital, the Office of the President said, “The essence of medical reform is to solve the shortage of essential medical personnel. The frame that limits it to increasing medical schools is false,” and packaged it as a ‘supply shortage’ strategy by putting forward the ‘shortage of essential doctors.’
At the time, the Office of the President adhered to the ‘financial compensation supply-dominant policy’ to respond to the ‘gap,’ saying, “We will reinforce the medical conditions in regions that are more vulnerable than Seoul, increase the base of essential personnel such as emergency medical staff, and at the same time create a reasonable compensation system.”
The ‘increase of 2,000 medical school students’ became a policy term used by the Office of the President and the Ministry of Health and Welfare to avoid criticism of the ‘medical supply-dominant strategy,’ which concealed the number fixed as the highest policy in medical policy.