Only Nurses Blamed for Surgery Cancellations... Residents Secretly Bearing Full Workload

Increasing Nurse Burden Due to Influx of Patient Complaints
Remaining Staff Bear Responsibility for Resolving Medical Gaps

"We cannot provide an answer. We are sorry. We are sorry..."

On the 21st, in front of the reception desk of a large hospital in the Chungnam region, loud voices were heard early in the morning. Patients, whose treatments were delayed due to the absence of residents who had gone on strike since the previous day, strongly protested to the nurses. The nurses kept bowing their heads repeatedly, busy apologizing to the angry patients.

On the 21st, visitors waiting for medical treatment at a large hospital in Seoul amid ongoing work stoppages following the resignation submissions by residents nationwide, including those at the Big 5 hospitals. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

Due to the mass resignation of residents at university hospitals, nurses and staff remaining on the front lines of patient care are suffering from physical and mental stress. There are concerns that internal conflicts within the medical community may deepen as the nightmare of the 2020 doctors' general strike repeats. Four years ago, the medical system of large hospitals was paralyzed when residents, along with the Korean Medical Association and fellows, participated in a strike.

A nurse A working in the operating room of a top-tier hospital in Seoul said, "Cancer surgeries and urgent surgeries are all being canceled," and added, "Nurses who call patients to inform them of cancellations receive all kinds of complaints." She continued, "Meanwhile, the hospital management, mostly composed of former doctors, tacitly supports the strike, and rather than addressing the issue, they encourage staff to take vacations due to a decrease in patients, seemingly focused on saving labor costs."

A criticized, "In the country's best hospital where critically ill patients gather, hoping for quick surgeries because life and death are at stake and cancer could spread at any time, ignoring patients for their own benefit raises questions about whether this aligns with the Hippocratic Oath."

Currently, the so-called 'Big 5 hospitals' (Seoul Asan Medical Center, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul National University Hospital, Severance Hospital) are responding to resident departures by canceling or delaying hospital appointments. According to the medical community, these large hospitals have reportedly reduced overall surgeries by about 30-50%. Night shifts, mainly handled by residents, are now covered by a small number of specialists on rotation.

Tasks left unaddressed due to the medical gap have naturally been passed on to the remaining staff on site. A representative from a university hospital in Chungnam said, "PA (Physician Assistant) nurses are substituting for residents' duties, including prescriptions," and added, "This is also hospital policy, and since the issue is being handled by the Medical Association, other staff cannot raise objections."

Nurses are also burdened with tasks beyond their usual duties. According to the Korean Health and Medical Workers' Union, several hospitals have implemented guidelines requesting nursing departments to perform some resident duties such as dressing wounds, catheter insertion, nasogastric tube insertion, and chemotherapy port insertion through PA nurses. It is also known that some hospitals assign general nurses as PA nurses without proper education or training to perform these tasks.

On the 21st, after the resignation letters were submitted and work stoppages continued among residents nationwide, including those at the Big 5 hospitals, a large hospital in Seoul was crowded with visitors. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

A nurse B from a regional university hospital revealed, "There was a request from the nursing department not to perform tasks outside nursing duties," but added, "In some specialized departments, due to severe delays, nurses have no choice but to secretly take over residents' duties."

Since PA nurses are not defined under domestic medical law, it is illegal for nurses to perform doctors' tasks such as prescribing medication or issuing medical certificates. Although there have been government attempts to institutionalize PA nurses since 2010, these efforts have repeatedly failed due to opposition from medical organizations.

The government has stated that if the strike prolongs, it will consider deploying PA nurses. However, the Korean Nurses Association opposed this, saying, "We have not held consultations with the government," and added, "Only by clarifying the scope of nursing duties, legally guaranteeing them, and establishing a safety net, and by codifying these protections into law, can nurses perform duties during medical service gaps."