Weekend Rally Held: "Resident Doctors' Strike Is a Sense of Privilege"
A rally urging the government not only to increase the number of medical school admissions but also to strengthen public healthcare was held in downtown Seoul. Approximately 500 people (estimated by the organizers) participated in the rally. After the rally, participants marched from Jonggak Station and Gwanghwamun to the Government Seoul Office.
About 40 organizations, including the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions Public Transport Workers' Union, People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, and the Movement Headquarters for Creating Good Public Hospitals, held a rally on the afternoon of the 16th in front of Marronnier Park in Jongno, Seoul, claiming that "the solution to the Korean medical crisis underlying the healthcare disaster is not competitive market-based healthcare but planned strengthening of public healthcare."
They stated, "The current medical crisis is a problem exposed by the chronic market-centered healthcare system in our country. Increasing the insufficient number of doctors is one of the essential tasks, but numerous overseas studies have already revealed that simply increasing the number of doctors hardly improves the quality of healthcare."
Regarding the resignation of residents, these groups criticized it as "a closed and exclusive collective action," adding, "There is not even a minimally proper demand to convince citizens why they are striking amid situations where critical patient surgeries are being postponed."
They continued, "This residents' strike, which stubbornly opposes increasing medical school admissions, is substandard," and added, "Such actions are hard to avoid criticism as a sense of privilege aimed at protecting vested interests."
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