Seong Tae-yoon, Director of the Presidential Office Policy Office, Visits Nursing and Assistant Nurses Association to Commend Their Efforts

"Accelerate the Four Major Medical Reform Tasks"
Nursing Association Urges "Attention to the Nurse Act Bill"

Sung Tae-yoon, Director of Policy at the Presidential Office (second from the left), and Park Min-soo, First Chief Coordinator of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters and Vice Minister of Health and Welfare, visited the Korea Nurses Association in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 27th, holding a meeting with Chairwoman Tak Young-ran and other executives.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

Seong Tae-yoon, Chief of Policy at the Presidential Office, visited the Korean Nurses Association and the Korean Licensed Practical Nurses Association on the afternoon of the 27th to express gratitude and encouragement to nurses and licensed practical nurses who are standing by patients in difficult medical settings due to doctors' collective actions, the Presidential Office announced.

On the same day, Chief Seong visited the Nurses Association located in Jung-gu, Seoul, and heard about the on-site situation, including emergency medical response, from Chairwoman Tak Young-ran and other executives. He also listened to various field opinions, including legal protection issues for Physician Assistant (PA) nurses, progress on the pilot project for medical support personnel, the increasing workload of nurses, and the need to enact the Nurse Act.

Chief Seong urged the Nurses Association to pay attention and make efforts to prevent nurses from experiencing burnout due to overwork. He added, "The government will also devise measures to ensure that nurses can devote themselves to protecting patients and the health and lives of the people during emergency medical situations."

Chairwoman Tak said, "We have prepared a new Nurse Act bill that resolves the main issues of the Nurse Act bill proposed last year," and requested the government to pay attention to the Nurse Act bill so that nursing services can be improved in preparation for a super-aged society and nurses can contribute to protecting patients' lives and health based on their expertise.

Additionally, Chief Seong visited the Licensed Practical Nurses Association located in Yongsan-gu and heard from Chairwoman Kwak Ji-yeon and other executives about the roles and difficulties of licensed practical nurses. Chairwoman Kwak and others raised issues such as the academic restrictions on eligibility for the national examination for licensed practical nurses and the need for legal recognition of the Licensed Practical Nurses Association as a statutory organization.

Chief Seong expressed gratitude for the nursing community's efforts, including statements supporting medical reform by the Nurses Association, and added, "We will continue to speedily promote the four major tasks of medical reform to meet the public's expectations for medical reform."