Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip has expressed concern over the impact of a physicians’ strike on public health and safety. 

Kim expressed his views on Friday during a trip to Chonbuk National University Hospital in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, where most of the trainee doctors participated in the one-day strike over the government’s plan to expand admission quotas at medical schools. 

Noting that his visit to the hospital was to check whether the strike causes any vacuums and disruptions in medical services, Kim said the walkout should cause no damage particularly to critically-ill patients. 

The vice minister reiterated the government’s stance that increasing the number of doctors is a “desperately needed” policy to enhance public health and safety, secure medical professionals in different parts of the country and foster epidemic experts and other medical scholars. 

The strike by some ten-thousand interns and resident doctors at major hospitals nationwide in the day reportedly caused no major service disruptions as the affected hospitals sought to secure alternative workforce in advance.