[The Editors' Verdict] The Nursing Act: Wounds Left by Divisive Politics

Nurse Act Bill Ultimately Discarded
Medical Field Conflicts Widen
Legislative Division Brings No Better Life for the People

"This is all President Yoon Seok-yeol's fault"

Last weekend, my niece, who had just finished her evening shift, came home around midnight completely exhausted. As a nurse, she said she had no time to sit down while caring for 28 patients that evening. If the Nursing Act had been passed, the number of patients per nurse would have been legally regulated, significantly reducing the workload, but since the president exercised his veto, the tough work continues.

The Nursing Act bill, on which President Yoon exercised his second veto since taking office, was ultimately discarded after a re-vote in the National Assembly plenary session on the 30th of last month. This law, which had divided the medical community and political circles for a year since passing the Health and Welfare Committee in May last year, has remained a source of social conflict even after its repeal.

The Korean Nurses Association opened an illegal medical practice reporting center immediately after the presidential veto and has been receiving reports from members about illegal activities occurring in hospitals. The site, launched on the 18th of last month, was once inaccessible due to traffic overload caused by a flood of reports from nurses known as PAs (Physical Assistants). These reports claim that nurses are performing medical acts that should be done by doctors, such as ultrasound and electrocardiogram tests, blood draws, suturing, proxy surgeries, and intubation. Nurses have also formed an election planning team, preparing to judge the ruling party in next year's general election. Since the repeal of the Nursing Act bill, professional conflicts in the medical field have intensified, turning nurses into political actors.

Reviewing the National Assembly's Nursing Act discussions, both ruling and opposition parties agreed on the necessity of the Nursing Act until the presidential election last year. However, positions began to diverge when the Democratic Party pushed the Nursing Act bill through the standing committee ahead of the local elections in June last year. In February this year, the Democratic Party escalated the confrontation by directly submitting the bill to the plenary session while it was still pending in the Legislation and Judiciary Committee. Facing the Democratic Party's push backed by their majority, the People Power Party took a resolute stance, and the president, emphasizing principles, exercised his veto on the grounds that the bill was not processed through consensus. The ruling party, which had promised to improve nurses' working conditions, suddenly changed its stance?perhaps as a check against the majority party's legislative dominance.

The opposition party is no different. There were efforts to reach an agreement during the National Assembly discussions. The People Power Party proposed a compromise reflecting doctors' demands, but the opposition and nurses rejected it. This was the arrogance of the majority party, unwilling to change a single word of the Nursing Act. Like the case of the Grain Management Act amendment, the legislative battle between the ruling and opposition parties, marked by uncompromising confrontation, inevitably led to the bill's repeal, yet they pushed it to the end. Politics is not "All or Nothing," but neither party made any effort to reduce differences or find common ground.

Under the current Medical Service Act, only doctors can open hospitals. In a capitalist society, doctors who pay salaries and nurses who receive them would not adjust their work in a horizontal relationship. If such medical realities had been considered during the Nursing Act discussions, the ruling and opposition parties would not have engaged in a power struggle over someone's livelihood.

On the 7th, Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, began the party's Supreme Council meeting by saying, "The reason politics exists is for the better life of the people." There is no better life for the people in a political landscape that fuels hatred and division.