Hospitals are struggling to maintain operations as thousands of trainee doctors continued their walkout for the sixth consecutive day on Sunday in protest of the government's plan to expand the medical school admissions quota.

Hospitals are reportedly reducing doctors' appointments and delaying surgeries to cope with the disruptions to operations caused by the walkout, but emergency room beds are getting full.

Fewer than half of the emergency room beds were available at four out of the so-called "Big Five" general hospitals in Seoul: Seoul National University Hospital, Asan Medical Center, Severance Hospital and Seoul St. Mary's Hospital.

The number of available beds is just two at Seoul National University Hospital and three at Asan Medical Center.

Over eight-thousand-800 trainee doctors at 94 hospitals tendered their resignations, of which more than seven-thousand-800 had actually walked off the job.

There had been about 190 reports of damage caused by the collective action, such as the abrupt cancellations of surgeries or patient consultations, and the figure is likely to increase over the weekend.