Medical staff and patients are seen at a general hospital in Seoul, Friday. Yonhap

The government's recent decision to allow medical schools to decrease their enrollment quotas by hundreds falls short of resolving a protracted strike by doctors, despite being a notable concession from its previous stance of adding 2,000 slots.

Doctors claimed that the government's apparent reversal on its pledge to increase the quota by 2,000 slots, atop the current 3,058, only reinforced the view that the significant hike was a policy mistake. Despite permitting reductions for the 2025 academic year, the government remains committed to incrementally raising the slots by 2,000 annually from 2026 through at least 2029.

The Yoon Suk Yeol administration announced the medical school quota hike plan in February and allocated the additional 2,000 admission seats to 32 universities on March 20, despite protests from doctors.

As the government-doctor confrontation and physicians' walkout drag on, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo announced, Friday, that the Yoon administration will accept a proposal made by the presidents of six state-run universities to allow them to voluntarily adjust the number of new medical school students within the 50 to 100 percent range of the increased quota allocated to them for 2025.

"The government has decided to proactively accept the proposals by the presidents of national universities, in order to actively protect the rights of medical students, normalize education in medical colleges and provide a foothold for resolving the standoff with the medical community," the prime minister said during a televised briefing.

Han also said that, besides the six universities, other colleges will also be permitted to reduce their intakes by up to half.

In other words, the new slots can be technically halved to 1,000.

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo speaks during a briefing on the government's decision to accept a request made by six university presidents to allow universities to scale back the allocated number of medical school enrollment quotas, at Government Complex Seoul, Friday. Yonhap

Friday's announcement marks the Yoon administration's first deviation from its steadfast commitment to the 2,000 slots, a figure it had staunchly upheld.

The government had vehemently contended that increasing the enrollment quota by 2,000 per year is the minimum required to tackle the nation's doctor shortage. The focus on these slots has sparked skepticism among critics, who have raised doubts about Yoon's apparent fixation with the specific quota hike.

As a result, the prime minister's comments were viewed as a significant concession by the government and interpreted as an olive branch extended to the medical community.

However, Han also made it clear that the reduction will be allowed only for the 2025 academic year, adding that the annual 2,000 slot increase will be applied from 2026 — although the government stressed that it can discuss further adjustments if the doctors' community comes up with a unified measure based on scientific analysis.

Patients are seen at a general hospital in Daegu, Friday. Yonhap

But doctors are refusing to budge.

"We can see that the government has grappled with resolving the ongoing standoff, but its announcement falls short of providing a fundamental solution and therefore we cannot accept it," the emergency response committee of the Korea Medical Association (KMA) — the country's biggest coalition of doctors — said in a statement, Saturday.

"The government can never achieve medical reforms if it continues to press ahead with it. We urge the president to make a decision to go back to square one."

Lim Hyun-taek, president-elect of the KMA, told Yonhap News Agency that the proposal by university presidents to scale back the allotted admissions quota has only proved that medical schools cannot physically handle the abruptly increased number of students.

Trainee doctors, who have walked off their jobs to protest, also reaffirmed their stance, stating they will not return to work unless the government scraps the admissions quota hike plan and begins negotiations from scratch.

Park Dan, the head of the emergency response committee at the Korea Intern Resident Association (KIRA), said the association is preparing to file an administrative lawsuit against the government in response to the back-to-work order imposed on striking trainee doctors.

Since late February, over 90 percent of the country's 13,000 medical interns and residents have been participating in a mass resignation movement to protest the government's medical school quota hike, leading to serious disruptions in hospital operations. The prolonged strike has also exacerbated the financial deficits of hospitals, prompting some to put their employees on unpaid leave or encourage voluntary retirement.