S. Korea to inject W188b to fill in medical void amid doctors’ protest

Nurses permitted to perform CPR, administer medication starting Friday

A nurse walks down the corridor of a hospital in Seoul, Thursday. (Yonhap)

The South Korean government announced Thursday that it would spend 188.2 billion won ($141 million) from the state health insurance fund for a month to address the medical care gap left by trainee doctors’ collective walkouts that started three weeks ago.

The provision of the funds will start Monday, and the same amount will be spent in the following month if the medical crisis continues.

Jun Byung-wang, a policy chief at the Health Ministry, said during Thursday’s briefing that the national health insurance funds would be spent on medical institutions that have been providing active emergency treatment to patients, and on transferring patients with mild symptoms to lower-level hospitals.

As part of the plan, the government will also spend the funds on medical professors and physicians treating critically ill patients at hospitals and plans to enhance compensation for rapid response teams in general medical wards responding to emergencies such as cardiac arrests.

In addition, the fund will be spent to help general hospitals maintain their 24-hour emergency medical services and prevent further disruptions.

A total of 11,219 junior doctors at 100 training hospitals, or 91 percent of the total, had left their workplaces as of Wednesday, according to the Health Ministry. The ministry noted that it is speeding up efforts to take administrative action against those who defied the government’s return-to-work orders.

Earlier in the day, Lee Han-kyung, the Interior Ministry’s chief disaster management official, said during a daily response meeting that the government would raise medical fees for emergency, high-risk and difficult surgeries, adding that specific plans will be introduced shortly.

Lee’s remark came after the Cabinet greenlighted a plan to use reserve funds to prop up emergency treatments by assigning medical personnel to essential medical services, such as pediatrics and obstetrics, and compensating those who remain committed to their profession.

As part of the efforts, Lee also said the government will swiftly enact the special law on medical malpractice to reduce legal burdens for doctors.

Also, nurses will be permitted to perform cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and administer medication to patients starting Friday, as they have been filling the void left by trainee doctors since Feb. 27.

Nurse practitioners and nurse specialists can prescribe medications, perform sutures and start drafting documents such as medical records and consent forms for surgery -- medical practices that have been limited to doctors. Nurse specialists in particular can perform intubation for patients who require critical care.

The details were announced after nurses demanded the ministry clarify their scope of practice and legal protection to conduct medical procedures typically done by doctors.

The guidelines apply to nurses working in training hospitals, which include general hospitals and hospitals with specialists. Also, general hospitals must define the scope of nursing practice and submit it to the ministry for approval.

These, however, only apply to those working in general hospitals and teaching hospitals where trainee doctors left, according to the ministry, as the measure aims to streamline treatment and patient care.

The ministry added that the director of the medical institution will bear the ultimate responsibility for any accidents that arise due to a lack of management and supervision. It also said that hospitals must document the basis for nurse deployment, as well as set up an education and training system for nurses.

The Korean Medical Association’s emergency committee issued a statement Thursday that allowing nurses to take on duties outside their boundaries only “promotes illegal medical practices.”

“If illegal medical practices (conducted) by inadequately qualified nurses happen more, the licensed professional’s scope of practice will collapse, and the medical field will deteriorate into a place where illegal and low-quality medical care would be common,” it said.

Amid continued protests over the expansion plan, the government has sped up in allocating 2,000 additional medical school places by forming a committee responsible for it, officials said Thursday.

The allocation team, comprising officials from the health and education ministries, will decide on how to adequately distribute the quota in universities in and outside the capital area, as the measure will affect current third-year high schoolers applying for the 2025 academic year.

The government survey on the medical school enrollment quota conducted earlier this year showed Tuesday that 40 medical schools nationwide have collectively requested an increase in the annual student quota by 3,401. The figure is 1.7 times higher than the planned increase of 2,000 students.

By Park Jun-hee(junheee@heraldcorp.com)