THE South Korean government said today that the country intends to withdraw its earlier plan to suspend licences of striking doctors as part of its efforts to resolve the country’s long-running medical dispute.

It wasn’t immediately known whether and how many of thousands of the striking doctors would return to work in the wake of the government’s announcement. 

Health Minister Cho KyooHong said today that the government had decided not to suspend their licences of the strikers, regardless of whether they return to their hospitals or not.

He said the government’s decision was meant to address a shortage of doctors treating emergency and serious patients and restore a training system to add more professional doctors.

More than 13,000 junior doctors, who are medical interns and residents, walked off the job in February in protest against the government’s plan to sharply boost school admissions. 

Their walkouts have hit the operations of university hospitals where they had worked while training.

Officials have said they want to add up to 10,000 doctors by 2035 to cope with the country’s fast-ageing population and a shortage of physicians in rural areas.

Doctors say schools aren’t ready to handle an abrupt increase in students and that it would ultimately undermine the country’s medical services.