The government has repeated calls for trainee doctors to return to work in consideration of their social responsibility as medical professionals, amid the doctors’ prolonged collective action in protest of an increase in the medical school admissions quota.

In a meeting on responses to the doctors’ collective action on Monday morning, the government reaffirmed that trainee doctors defying the government’s back-to-work order will face measures “according to laws and principles.” Since last week, the government has been delivering advance notices of license suspensions for trainee doctors who have violated the state return-to-work order. 

In the meeting, Lee Han-kyung, the interior ministry’s chief disaster management official, said that more than 90 percent of trainee doctors are still ignoring reality and professors at some medical schools and teaching hospitals are showing signs of joining the collective action.

Lee said that doctors should not neglect patients under any circumstances and warned that if the trainee doctors don’t stay with their patients, the public will not sympathize with their claims and demands.

The official added that the government is keeping the door open for dialogue with trainee doctors, urging them to engage in talks for the sake of their patients. 

Meanwhile, Lee said that the government will strengthen public health care as part of emergency measures to cope with the medical vacuum left by the thousands of trainee doctors who have left their worksites.