President Yoon Suk Yeol has stressed that health care reform cannot be subject to negotiation or compromise. 

The president made the remark on Tuesday during a meeting with mayors and provincial governors on local autonomy at the presidential office. 

Yoon said the collective action taken by trainee doctors in protest of the government's plan to increase the medical school admissions quota is an unjustifiable act that threatens the lives and safety of the people. 

He dismissed calls to delay the quota expansion as he said even if medical schools start to increase their admissions quotas now, it will be ten years before the number of doctors begins to rise. 

The president stressed that the government is pursuing health care reform with the utmost urgency as this is the last opportunity to save the people and the regions. 

Yoon said if a nation fails to provide timely and appropriate treatment to its people when they are in pain, it is not fulfilling its constitutional duty.