Health and Medical Workers' Union: "Allowing Nurses to Perform Medical Tasks Threatens Patient Lives"

The government has introduced a policy to fill the medical gap caused by the collective resignation of residents with nursing staff, but health civic groups have strongly opposed it.

The Korean Health and Medical Workers' Union (KHMU) issued a statement on the 8th regarding the government's directive to significantly allow nurses to perform medical tasks, criticizing it as "a measure that threatens patients' lives by permitting nurses to perform doctors' duties as a solution to the medical service gap."

To address the 'medical gap' caused by the departure of residents, the government has allowed nurses to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation and administer emergency drugs to emergency patients. On the 7th, a nurse was working at a large hospital in Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

According to the 'Supplementary Guidelines for the Pilot Project on Nursing Duties' effective from this day, nurses can perform 89 out of 98 medical support activities in 10 fields on behalf of doctors, excluding 9 activities such as X-rays, intra-articular injections, urinary catheterization, drainage tube insertion, surgery, general anesthesia, and prescription of specialized medicines.

In response, the union stated, "Although this is a temporary emergency measure to resolve the medical service gap caused by residents' refusal to provide care, it cannot be a proper solution," and argued, "Allowing nurses to perform unlimited high-difficulty and high-risk medical procedures directly related to patients' lives among doctors' duties seriously endangers patient safety."

Additionally, the union added, "Since medical institution heads are granted discretion to set the scope of nursing duties in consultation with nursing department heads, different standards will inevitably apply to each medical institution, causing confusion in medical care."

The union expressed concern, saying, "Nurses cannot be properly protected in the event of medical accidents occurring while performing doctors' duties," and "The final legal responsibility for accidents due to inadequate management and supervision lies with the heads of medical institutions, effectively shifting legal liability onto them."

Furthermore, the union urged a resolution through dialogue, stating, "The government should proactively propose social dialogue to devise solutions for the crisis of collapse in essential, regional, and public healthcare, and medical associations should accept the proposal for social dialogue and make a decision to return to the medical field for the sake of the public."

Finally, the union declared, "Under no circumstances will we tolerate the five major illegal medical acts without a license: proxy prescription, proxy preparation of consent forms and medical records, proxy treatment and procedures, proxy surgery, and proxy dispensing," and added, "In the process of setting the scope of nursing duties at each medical institution, we will ensure that medical tasks directly related to patient lives are not included within the scope of nursing duties."

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