The Korean Medical Association (KMA) launched its presidential election planning headquarters on the 13th and began to respond to the early presidential election phase. This seems to imply a proactive stance on addressing conflicts during the electoral process.
The KMA held the inauguration ceremony for the presidential election planning headquarters that afternoon at the KMA headquarters in Yongsan, Seoul. The Deputy Minister is Min Bok-gi, the head of the Daegu Metropolitan City Medical Association.
Deputy Minister Min stated, "We need to resolve various issues related to conflicts in healthcare governance by April under the acting authority of Han Duck-soo" and added, "Medical students and residents need to find common ground with the government as soon as possible to promptly address the issue of medical school enrollment for next year."
He also remarked regarding the medical school enrollment for the year after next, "We will set a range for the number of students we can educate and could discuss it in the National Assembly."
The KMA is demanding that next year's medical school enrollment be early confirmed at 3,058 students, the number before the conflicts in healthcare governance. The KMA's voice is that the controversy related to healthcare governance must be resolved before the new government takes office.
Along with the launch of the presidential election planning headquarters, the KMA held a national conference of physician representatives, where they announced a resolution demanding the disbanding of the Presidential Medical Reform Special Committee and adjustments to medical school enrollment.
In the resolution, the KMA claimed, "Frontline healthcare sites have been devastated as a result of one-sided and irrational policy implementation, and students wishing to learn medicine are having their right to education infringed upon" and asserted, "There are fundamental flaws in the government's health and medical policy implementation methods."
KMA President Kim Taek-woo said, "The legitimacy of the erroneous medical policy implementation has been extinguished due to this impeachment ruling" and urged, "The government must acknowledge its past mistakes and immediately cease the deterioration of healthcare, implementing rational medical policies for normalization of healthcare."