[Reporter’s Notebook] 367 Days of Medical-Government Talks: Only Assertions, No Negotiations

On March 30th last year at 3 p.m., five negotiators each from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korean Medical Association (KMA) began the 5th meeting of the Medical Issues Consultative Body. For an hour and a half, the government emphasized the 'need to train medical personnel,' while the KMA stressed the 'need for hospital bed management.' They were talking past each other. "By the time we finished reading all the materials brought by both sides, the meeting time was over, and we parted without any discussion," said a KMA official who attended the meeting. This official added that the atmosphere was similar in all meetings before and after that day.

On the 10th, the deadline set by the Seoul High Court for the government to submit the minutes of the medical school expansion meetings, we obtained and reviewed an internal KMA document titled 'Status of Medical Issues Consultative Body Operations,' which revealed a meeting atmosphere of repeated self-assertions. This document summarizes the main contents of 27 meetings held over 367 days, organized by date.

The 19-page document resembles a broken tape recorder transcript. The government repeated its policy of expansion 18 times, citing the 'need to increase medical personnel' and 'the medical community should understand the will of the people.' Each time, the KMA opposed, repeating that 'attempting to resolve the failure of the medical delivery system caused by policy failure through increasing medical school quotas is irresponsible and inappropriate.' The document contains no 'negotiation process' where both sides accept valid points from each other's demands and propose revisions to insufficient parts.

The KMA, through the medical-government consultative body formed to discuss essential medical care measures, insisted from the 3rd meeting on March 16th to the 22nd meeting on December 20th last year on 'blocking the establishment of branch university hospitals in the metropolitan area that destroy the local medical ecosystem.' This means preventing the establishment of branch university hospitals in the metropolitan area because they absorb patients from local clinics, which constitute the mainstream of KMA members.

On page 9 of the document, a recommendation from the KMA General Assembly on November 3rd last year to 'reorganize the medical negotiation team and actively consult with the government' is highlighted with a red border. While this may seem like a conciliatory stance, investigative results reveal that the reality was a call to replace the negotiation team with hardliners due to internal criticism that the consultative body was being led by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. This one-sided hardline approach has led to the current medical crisis.

The government says it discussed expansion in the medical-government consultative body, while the KMA says it did not. Reading the document, both claims are correct. The government 'proposed' discussing medical school expansion, but no 'negotiation' with the medical community took place. Both sides have only expressed what they want to say from their own perspectives since last year. If they continue to maintain this attitude, the medical crisis will not be resolved.