Patient Organizations to Hold Rally in July to Protest Medical Community’s Collective Action

Patient organizations plan to launch a major rally next month to call on the medical community to scrap its suspension of patient treatments and to demand the enactment of a law preventing similar incidents from occurring again. 

The Korea Alliance of Patients Organization and the Union of Korea Breast Cancer Patient announced on Friday that they will launch the demonstration with other patient associations in front of Bosingak Pavilion in Seoul’s Jongno District on July 4. 

In submitting their protest plans to authorities, the groups said some one-thousand people are set to take part in the rally. 

In a statement, the groups said the medical vacuum that resulted from the collective resignation of trainee doctors has continued for more than four months now, adding that patients who had endured the medical community’s collective suspension of patient treatment and indefinite suspension of such services are now enraged and appalled. 

The groups said though patients continue to suffer, the government and parliament have remained powerless, adding that patients and their families have decided to act to protect the lives of patients.