"Nursing Act Held Hostage to Public Life? ... Never Once Left Patients' Side"

Kim Won-il, Policy Advisory Committee Member of the Korean Nurses Association, MBC Interview
"Isn't Yoon's 'Korean Nurses Association's Long-cherished Project' the Enactment of the Nursing Act?"

Regarding the ruling by the People Power Party and the government that the Nursing Act bill is a "legislative dictatorship holding the lives of the people hostage," Kim Won-il, a policy advisory committee member of the Korean Nurses Association, said, "The anger and sense of betrayal among nurses are immense."

In an interview with MBC Radio's 'Kim Jong-bae's Focus' on the 15th, Kim responded to President Yoon's statement during his presidential campaign that "the long-cherished wish of the Nurses Association will definitely be fulfilled," saying, "Who wouldn't know that it was about the Nursing Act?" He opposed the People Power Party's claim that the enactment of the Nursing Act was not a policy pledge of President Yoon.

He added, "I think the People Power Party is actually in trouble because of making that claim," and said, "Saying such things looks very narrow-minded."

On the 12th, Nurses attending the commemorative celebration held on Sejong-daero, Jongno-gu, Seoul, in honor of International Nurses Day 2023, raised placards and shouted slogans urging the enactment of the Nursing Act. Photo by Dongju Yoon doso7@

Kim emphasized, "(Doctors) opposed the expansion of medical school quotas in 2020 and, during the catastrophic medical crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, they refused to provide treatment, holding the lives and safety of the people hostage. Even then, nurses overcame all those situations and not only guarded the frontlines alone without doctors but have not left the medical field even once until now, when the end of COVID-19 has been declared. Even while fighting for the enactment of the Nursing Act, they have never left the patients' side."

However, the ruling party and government’s claim that the enactment of the Nursing Act "held the lives and safety of the people hostage" is "a very humiliating statement to nurses, and the anger is tremendous," he conveyed.

Regarding the necessity of enacting the Nursing Act, Kim said, "The Nursing Act does not infringe on the duties of those who have opposed it so far," and explained, "Nurses' medical practices, such as health promotion and the planning and execution of health promotion activities, are already stipulated in the current Medical Service Act, and (just like under the current law) they intend to continue doing those things. However, people mistakenly believe that only doctors perform medical practices."

He continued, "Since Korea is experiencing a shortage of doctors and doctors' duties are being entirely shifted to other professions, I believe the Nursing Act should be re-promoted along with complementary legislation for other professionals such as medical technicians, and other laws should be amended to resolve the uncertainty of duties."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.