The government has reiterated that it cannot accept the medical community's demand to reconsider adding slots to medical schools from square one. 

In a news briefing on Wednesday, second vice health minister Park Min-soo said the government will discuss ways to resolve the impasse only if trainee doctors engaging in collective action express their intent to return to work. 

He urged the doctors to return to dialogue without conditions, stressing that the government is willing to engage in dialogue at any time without any restriction to format and agenda. 

He also vowed active efforts to minimize any disadvantages that trainee doctors who wish to return to work could face. 

During Wednesday’s meeting on responses to the doctors' collective action, the government also decided to dispatch 120 additional military doctors for four weeks starting from Thursday.