SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s presidential office is open to adjusting the scale of a plan to increase medical school admissions for 2026 by 2,000, the Yonhap news agency reported on Friday citing an unidentified senior ruling party official.
The report also said the presidential office was open to launching a consultative body with the ruling and opposition parties to address the shortage of doctors caused by an ongoing doctors’ strike.
Thousands of trainee doctors, including interns and resident doctors, walked off the job in February in protest against a plan to lift medical student numbers by 2,000 a year to address what authorities project will be a severe shortage of doctors.
The government has said the plan remains unchanged although it was open to discuss suggestions if doctors come to the table.
It is facing increasing pressure amid reports of a shortage of doctors in hospital emergency rooms.
The health ministry earlier this week said it was deploying military doctors to meet the shortage of medical staff but disputed a warning by some physicians that the system was on the verge of collapse.
(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
