Prime Minister Han Duck-soo reaffirmed the administration's unbending resolve to expand medical school admissions quota by two-thousand starting the 2025 academic year, calling on trainee doctors and medical students taking collective action in protest to return to patients and schools.

In a national address held a month into the doctors' collective action on Wednesday, Han said medical reforms to revitalize essential medicine and medical services outside the capital region, one of the administration's key agendas, is a state task that can no longer be delayed.

Emphasizing that the government met with the medical community over 130 times to listen to its concerns, the prime minister said it was decided that investments and institutional changes would be insufficient amid the aging society and medical advancement.

Citing that the number of doctors per one-thousand population in South Korea, including Korean medicine doctors, is the second-lowest among OECD member states, Han said experts through a scientific analysis concluded that there would be a shortage of ten-thousand doctors in 2035.

As for calls by certain groups for the government to reconsider the increase in med student quota, Han said adequate compromise for political gains and losses would only end up causing damage to the public.

Pledging to continue implementing other major tasks under medical reforms aside from the quota hike, such as increasing insurance fees in essential medicine, Han said the door to dialogue with the medical community will remain open at all times.