Prime minister Han Duck-soo said the government has a clear basis for its decision to increase the enrollment quota at medical schools by two-thousand, reaffirming the government's determination to push ahead with the plan. 

Presiding over a meeting on responses to trainee doctors' collective action in protest of the quota hike on Wednesday, Han criticized the medical community for claiming that the government's analysis is insufficient. He said the medical community was silent during the government's many attempts to hear its opinion on the matter.

Han said the quota hike of two-thousand from the 2025 academic year was decided after considering potential demands from each university. He added there were also study results showing the nation will see a shortage of ten-thousand doctors by 2035.

The prime minister continued that it would be an easy choice to give in to the medical community's protest and a difficult choice to proceed as planned, stressing that the government is set to make the difficult choice for the good of the people and the sustainability of the medical system.

Han said the government had reduced the quota by 351 in 2006 due to demands from the medical community, and if it had not, the nation would have produced more than ten-thousand additional doctors by 2035.