Protests have erupted among nurses in South Korea after President Yoon Suk-yeol vetoed a controversial bill aiming to define the roles and duties of nurses and improve their working conditions.
Yoon’s veto was met with condemnation from nurses, who argued that the bill served as a legal framework to improve their working conditions and legally define their roles and responsibilities to protect them from excessive workloads.
The existing Medical Service Act mandates that nurses perform under the guidance of medical doctors, but it does not clarify their roles and duties. As a result, many nurses had to comply with doctors’ directions and work in assisting capacities due to the lack of role definitions.
Nurses’ groups claimed that the proposed bill does not include provisions allowing them to open their own clinics, as the current medical law prohibits nurses from doing so.
The KNA, which led the walkout on Friday, criticized Yoon for abandoning his promise as a presidential candidate to improve nurses’ working conditions.
“We will make the politicians and the bureaucrats pay the price for leading the president to veto the bill,” association president Kim Yeong-kyeong said, referring to next year’s general elections, during a demonstration in Seoul on Friday.
The impact of the strike was seen as limited so far, as most protesters used holiday time or shortened business hours, with major hospitals operating normally.
South Korean Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong had urged medical facilities to closely monitor the situation to prevent the strike from affecting patients.
Doctors’ groups have earlier expressed opposition to the nursing bill, arguing that its passage could lead to nurses practicing medicine independently and potentially opening their own clinics. They previously staged protests demanding the rejection of the bill.
The Korean Medical Association said the bill was “an outcome of a political alignment” led by nurse groups seeking to “monopolize health care programs in the local community.”
Meanwhile, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) issued a statement last year expressing its support for the proposed nursing bill. The ICN said that “a legal framework underpinning nurses and nursing practice is imperative for the protection of nurses and patients.”
“The new Korean Nursing Act aims to ensure patient safety; improve recruitment and retention of nurses; establish clear regulatory and educational standards and processes; and ensure decent working conditions for nurses,” the ICN stated.
“It provides a clear framework to protect the definition of nursing and establish staffing levels to ensure patient safety,” it added.
