SEOUL, Hundreds of doctors took to the street nationwide Thursday to protest the government's recent decision to dramatically hike the annual medical school admission quota. The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced its decision last week to increase the entrance quota for medical schools by 2,000 seats to 5,058 beginning next year in order to address a shortage of medical services in rural areas and essential medical disciplines. The plan is running into fierce opposition from doctors' groups, including those of trainee doctors and medical students, who protest that the government did not have prior consultations with them and it will only lead to the erosion of the quality of medical education and services. The Korean Medical Association (KMA), a major lobbying group of doctors, has warned they will go on a nationwide strike in protest. On Thursday, some 120 member doctors of the KMA's branch in Gangwon Province held a rally in front of the provincial government building, demanding the withdrawal of the quota hike plan. "The government decision was made in a sloppy manner without any consideration of the current educational condition at medical schools. It's nothing but a populist policy aimed at the upcoming general elections," one of the protesting doctors said. The protesters refuted the government's reasoning that the number of doctors per every 1,000 people in South Korea is below the average seen among the member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). "There are only a few nations among the OECD members where people have easy access to medical services at a low cost, like South Korea," the doctor said, adding the quota hike can seriously erode the quality of education at medical schools and eventually damage people's rights to health. KMA-affiliated doctors also held protest rallies in the central city of Daejeon, the southeastern city of Ulsan, as well as the North Chungcheong and North Jeolla Provinces, each drawing up to 100 doctors. "Any shortage in do ctors in essential medical fields should be addressed not by increasing the number of doctors, but by improving insurance benefits and fostering an environment where doctors in such areas can have a sense of duty and pride," Kim Jong-soo, the head of the KMA's North Jeolla branch, said during the rally. Another doctor affiliated with the KMA's North Chungcheong branch also said that "During the 10-year period needed to expand the workforce of doctors, the collapse of medical services in essential medical disciplines would only accelerate." Other regional branches of the doctors' group, including those in South Jeolla, Seoul and Jeju Island, are also scheduled to hold protest rallies in the evening. Members of the KMA and its regional branches plan to hold a meeting in Seoul on Saturday to discuss their future plans against the quota hike. Source: Yonhap News Agency