Despite Nurse Work Measures Amid Medical Gaps, "Uncertainty Due to Ambiguous Work Scope"

Despite the government's pilot project related to nurses' duties, about 30% of nurses still express anxiety due to unclear job boundaries.

On the 11th, at a secondary general hospital in Seoul where collective action by doctors, centered on residents, is ongoing, nurses are moving busily. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

On the 9th, Kang Sun-woo, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, revealed that this was included in the survey results received from the Korean Nurses Association (KNA).

In February, when a medical vacancy occurred due to the resignation of residents following the increase in medical school admissions, the government implemented a 'pilot project related to nurses' duties.' This was in response to complaints that nurses were being forced to take on doctors' tasks in most hospitals experiencing vacancies. The pilot project allowed nurses to share some of the doctors' duties with legal protection and prohibited the delegation of tasks outside the agreed scope.

However, on-site reports pointed out that guidelines were not well followed and many institutions did not participate in the pilot project, leaving nurses still unprotected.

Last month, the KNA conducted a survey on job-related conditions targeting 650 affiliated nurses (336 dedicated nurses, 289 general nurses, and 25 specialized nurses). Among them, 65.2% (424 people) responded that they were "having difficulties performing their roles," and about half of them, 206 people, cited "anxiety due to unclear responsibility for tasks" as the reason for their difficulties. Respondents said, "The scope of duties is ambiguous, and there is no education system, so we are anxious about responsibility in case of patient safety accidents or medical errors."

Sixty-six people cited "limitations in promotion and career development" as a reason for difficulty in role performance. They complained that managers with experience in dedicated clinical support tasks are rare, and clinical support personnel are implicitly excluded from the nursing department's promotion system. Additionally, 33 people mentioned "negative reactions from patients and guardians regarding nurses performing residents' duties," and 31 people cited "anxiety about department changes whenever residents return."

Among the survey participants, 64.0% (416 people) also reported difficulties due to indiscriminate tasks. Of these 416, 162 said, "We are indiscriminately performing tasks of interns, residents, and nurses without job descriptions," and 105 said, "There are too many tasks due to indiscriminate duties and other miscellaneous work." Twenty people reported being forced to perform unfair tasks such as assisting clinical research and completing missing medical records, and 19 said conflicts with doctors and others made their work difficult.

In response to the nursing community's protests that a system is needed to protect nurses continuously due to the insufficiency of the pilot project, the government and the National Assembly passed the Nursing Act in August to institutionalize dedicated nurses. However, nurses are concerned about the Ministry of Health and Welfare's authority to define the scope of duties by decree, saying, "The current government's pilot project scope is too broad and includes dangerous tasks."

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