South Korea launches procedure to suspend nearly 5,000 striking doctors. Around 12,000 interns, or 93% of the total, were absent from their hospitals on Monday.
The strikers are protesting against a plan to increase the number of medical school admissions by 65% from next year. Doctors are fiercely opposed to the project, believing that admitting more students to medical schools will result in a drop in the level of future practitioners. But supporters of reform accuse them of being above all worried about seeing their income decrease and their social status deteriorate.