The healthcare crisis resulting from the medical school enrollment quota increase has continued for over eight months. On Tuesday, however, President Yoon Suk Yeol reaffirmed his commitment to push ahead with the “medical reform,” calling it an “urgent task.”

Yoon specifically emphasized the need to restructure tertiary general hospitals and instructed the relevant ministries to prepare a plan to improve accidental insurance within the year.

“Without across-the-board social reforms, there can be no public livelihood and no future for the country. In the remaining two months of this year, the government must focus on the four major reforms above all else,” President Yoon said in his speech at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “The most urgent task is healthcare reform.”

In preparation for the upcoming winter, the medical system must be tightly maintained so that patient care will not be disrupted, Yoon said. The emergency system and critical care must be thoroughly organized so that the public will not be anxious,” he added.

“The government must also accelerate its restructuring project for tertiary general hospitals, as was announced as the first task of the healthcare reform,” Yoon said. “We must root out the practice of relying on the labor of trainee doctors. Make every effort to transform the structure of tertiary general hospitals so that they can become 'critical care hospitals.'”

The chief executive also ordered the government to speed up the second task of healthcare reform—reforming unreimbursed treatment and actual loss insurance. To do so, he said the government plans to invest more than 30 trillion won ($21.4 billion), which will come from a combination of state funds and health insurance.

“If unreimbursed treatment and actual loss insurance are not harmonized with public health insurance, it is like pouring water in a bottomless jar,” Yoon said. “The Financial Service Commission and the Ministry of Health and Welfare should develop an improvement plan for actual loss insurance within the year to help normalize the healthcare system and build a win-win structure.”

Yoon’s reiteration of the need for medical reform came as the medical community refused all dialogue attempts unless the government canceled its plan to increase the medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 for 2025.