Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo accused medical professors Sunday of blackmailing people after they decided to submit resignations en masse later this month in protest of the government's decision to increase the country's medical school enrollment quota. Park also reaffirmed that the government's decision to increase the medical school quota by 2,000 from the current 3,058 is not subject to negotiation, rejecting a demand from medical professors that the government first back off from the decision. Thousands of interns and resident doctors have stayed off the job for nearly a month in protest of the quota hike that they claim would lead to a surplus of physicians and compromise the quality of medical education and services. "Even professors have declared they would resign collectively unless their demand is met," Park said on YTN TV. "This is huge blackmail against people ... We have to break the cycle of collective action in the medical sector." The emergency committee of medical professors announced after a meeting Friday night that professors from 16 medical schools decided to submit resignations en masse on March 25 in an effort to seek a breakthrough in the prolonged impasse. Park also rejected calls for raising health insurance payments to doctors, especially those in essential sectors short of physicians, saying such hikes without increasing the medical school quota would lead to a four-to-five fold hike in health insurance premiums. Joo Yeong-Soo, chief of the National Medical Center (NMC), deplored the medical professors' decision to resign en masse, stressing that defending the striking doctors won't help resolve the issue. "Doctors who say they won't sit idly by or will resign in support of the junior doctors, they are doing nothing but declaring collective action by taking the health and lives of patients hostage," Joo said in a press conference, held after the NMC's own specialists issued a statement advocating the strike. "It is a despairing situation that medical professors who are in th e top ranks among doctors say something like this," Joo said. Joo also blamed the NMC's specialists for issuing the statement that disregards the NMC's position as a public hospital. "I express the deepest regret and concern that the statement was issued under the name of the NMC, which holds significant weight and position in our society, and mentioned the potential irrational action in the absence of a consensus among the members," he said. Joo said the statement is not the NMC's position and urged the striking doctors to quickly return to work. "The collective action of the junior doctors is seriously putting the health and lives of our patients at risk," he said. "We ask you to please come back to the patients as quickly as possible." The government has been pushing to sharply raise the number of medical students to brace for the country's fast-aging population, and a shortage of physicians in rural areas and essential areas, such as pediatrics and emergency departments. Doctors, on the other hand, say the quota hikes will undermine the quality of medical education and result in higher medical costs for patients. They have called for measures to first address the underpaid specialists and improve legal protection against excessive medical malpractice lawsuits. But Park said the government cannot accept doctors turning away from their patients even if they have concerns about the government's policy. "Professors say they will not stand still if their pupils face disadvantage, and this is a remark that challenged the rule of law." Source: Yonhap News Agency