Posted September. 26, 2000 20:54,
The government and the medical circle met officially for the first time on Tuesday at the Palace Hotel in Seoul to discuss the stormy medical reform program, but their negotiations got off to a shaky start. The government has succeeded in drawing striking doctors to the negotiating table with a pledge to apologize for its problematic medical reform program, but the medical circle has repeatedly asked for formal apologies from the health and welfare minister as well as the director of the Seoul metropolitan police.
Before the talks began, Health and Welfare Minster Choi Sun-Jung started with a greeting, expressing his regrets over the anxiety and discomfort the people have experienced throughout the whole ordeal. The minister continued to express his hope that the meeting would bring good results to medical reform and the separation of pharmacies and clinics and asked the medical circle for honest and sincere dialogue.
On the other hand, representative chairman Kim Se-Gon of the emergency sub-committee of 10 joint representatives from the KMA demanded sincerity from the government and asserted that their struggle should not be viewed as an act of egotism by an interest group that held patients hostage, but a historic revolution for the people and their right to health.
Striking interns and residents, however, refused to sit at the negotiating table, demanding an apology from the director of the Seoul Metropolitan police for injuring striking doctors in an Aug. 12 clampdown on collective action. Consequently, the negotiations failed to get into the details of planting the medical reform program and improving the current medical environment.
The spokesperson for the striking doctors, Chu Su-Ho, asserted that regrets expressed by the Seoul metropolitan police in some report materials were not enough and demanded a formal apology from the director of the Seoul metropolitan police himself. He firmly stated that doctors would not begin the negotiations without the apology.