South Korea yesterday granted nurses new powers and legal protections, and launched an investigation into a patient’s death, as hospital chaos caused by striking trainee doctors entered a second week.
Major hospitals are struggling to provide services after thousands of junior medics handed in their resignation and stopped working last week to protest against government plans to sharply increase admissions at medical schools in the face of a rapidly aging society.
The South Korean government yesterday said it would launch an investigation after a patient died of a cardiac arrest in an ambulance after struggling to find a hospital.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Emergency services contacted seven different hospitals, but “were told there were no trainee doctors,” the JoongAng Ilbo reported.
“The government is conducting an on-site probe with related agencies into the death,” South Korean Minister of Health and Welfare Cho Kyoo-hong said.
The mass work stoppage has also resulted in cancelations and postponements of surgeries for cancer patients and caesarean sections for pregnant women, with the government raising its public health alert to the highest level over the fallout.
Nurses would now be allowed to perform some medical procedures previously reserved for doctors and offered immunity from any potential lawsuits linked to their new scope of work, Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Park Min-soo said.
“This pilot program will legally protect the nurses who are filling the medical vacuum created by trainee doctors’ walkouts at hospitals,” Park said.
The government said it needed to protect nurses as there were currently some “gray areas” as to what medical treatments could be performed by which staff, at a time when nurses were “shouldering the workload” due to the strike.
The administrations of each hospital can work with nurses to decide which tasks they could perform.
The government has set an ultimatum tomorrow for doctors to return to work, saying that legal action — including prosecution and the suspension of medical licenses — would be taken against those who refuse.
“We urge the trainee doctors to return to medical fields as soon as possible,” Park said.
Korean Cancer Patients Rights Council head Kim Sung-ju said that delays in chemotherapy and surgeries were happening in all university hospitals near the Seoul metropolitan area.
“We will thoroughly investigate all potential legal grounds and hold those responsible accountable if those with severe illnesses suffer severe damage,” Kim said.
Doctors are restricted from strikes by South Korean law, but the medics have said they have no option but to stop working to show their fierce opposition to the government’s plan.
Seoul says it has one of the lowest doctor-to-population ratios among developed nations and the government is pushing hard to admit 2,000 more students to medical schools annually, starting next year.
Junior doctors say the reforms are the final straw in a profession where they already struggle with tough working conditions. They also argue that the overreliance on trainees in the healthcare system is not reasonable or fair, but South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday said that “medical reform cannot be subject to negotiation or compromise.”
“No reasons can justify acts that hold lives and health of the people hostage,” he said at a meeting.
Polls suggest up to 75 percent of the South Korean public supports the increase in admissions at medical schools.
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