Seoul: South Korean Police They were said on Friday to have searched the office of the hardline leader of a doctors’ union and seized his mobile phone as he is accused of inciting thousands of people to stage a prolonged walkout. medical intern And residents.

This development could further dim the prospects of an early end to the strikes. office of Lim hyun-taekWho is to be inaugurated as the head of Korean Medical Association The following week, the raid was described as politically motivated and questioned whether the government was sincere in its offer for talks to end the strikes.

Police said they sent officers to Lim’s office in Seoul and residence in the southern city of Asan on Friday to seize his mobile phone and other unspecified materials.

Lim is one of five former or current officials of the Korean Medical Association who are under police investigation for allegedly inciting and promoting strikes. In mid-April, the medical licenses of two of them were suspended. health authorities,

Lim’s office said in a statement that the police raid was “clear retaliation and political repression” of Lim. It said that if the government really wanted talks then it should not have conducted the raids.

More than 10,000 trainees and residents at major university hospitals walked off the job in February in protest at a government plan to raise the country’s medical school enrollment quota to 2,000 from the current limit of 3,058 from next year. Surgeries and other medical treatments at their hospitals have been canceled and delayed several times due to their walkouts.

Faced with growing public demand to find a compromise to end the strikes, the government said last week it could adjust its plan by allowing universities to stipulate that planned intakes for the next year be reduced by 50 percent. To go or not. This means the number of new recruits medical students Next year it may drop to 1,000

But Lim said doctors want the government to scrap the enrollment growth plan altogether, as they will not allow any increase in the number of students. He also urged the government to fire top officials involved in the formulation of the admission plan.

Officials say the plan aims to add more doctors because South Korea has the world’s fastest-aging population and its doctor-to-population ratio is one of the lowest in the developed world.

Doctors say schools are not prepared to handle the sudden increase in students and it will ultimately weaken the country’s medical services. He says the government plan will result in more competition from doctors performing unnecessary treatments. But critics say that these are not the real reasons behind their opposition and that they are simply worried that supplying more doctors will reduce their income in the future.

South Korea’s current medical student enrollment cap is unchanged from 2006, with doctors having thwarted the previous government’s efforts with vigorous protests.

Adding to concerns about the medical standoff, senior doctors at university hospitals, where the striking junior doctors worked, have threatened to resign in support of the strike. Their unions have recently decided to give senior doctors one day off every week, citing more work due to the departure of their junior colleagues.

At a briefing on Friday, senior Ministry of Health Official Jun Byung Wang described the senior doctors’ move as “regrettable”. He urged them not to abandon their patients, although the government could not find any hospital that planned to accept his offer of resignation.