SOUTH KOREA’S government hit out at senior doctors at a major hospital today for threatening to resign in support of the walkouts by thousands of medical interns and residents that have disrupted hospital operations.

About 12,000 junior doctors in South Korea have been off the job for a month to protest against a government plan to sharply increase medical school admissions. 

Officials say the plan is meant to add more doctors to deal with the country's rapidly ageing society, but doctors say universities can’t handle an abrupt, steep increase in the number of students.