Staff at Seoul National University Hospital to strike over wages from Oct. 31

Nurses, medical technicians and laboratory scientists at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) will begin an indefinite strike starting Oct. 31.

Visitors and patients walk in front of Seoul National University Hospital in central Seoul in October. [YONHAP]

Nurses, medical technicians and laboratory scientists at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) will begin an indefinite strike starting Oct. 31.

A labor union at SNUH that does not represent doctors made the decision to strike at its meeting convened last Thursday, according to the medical community on Saturday.

The strike comes after the hospital did not accept workers' demands to increase wages and cancel the plan to reduce the number of patient beds.

The union claimed that the Yoon Suk Yeol administration is pushing a drive for “fake medical reform,” with a decision to reduce patient beds by 5 to 15 percent at tertiary hospitals nationwide. The group said SNUH would have to remove 15 percent of its medical beds as part of the reform.

The union said the administration's reform is “destroying public health services” because such a reduction would adversely affect the availability of state-funded patient beds. According to the union, some 9.7 percent of the patient beds nationwide are state funded.

The union has asked SNUH President and CEO Kim Young-tae to devise measures that can boost “the hospital’s pivotal role in bolstering public accessibility to the health services.”

The group also recommended that the hospital hire additional staff to improve patient and worker safety.

Workers said they anticipated additional staffing and improvements in working conditions, considering their contribution to treating Covid-19 patients during the pandemic.

But the union says workers are “now in fear of instability of their employment and wages” due to a standoff between doctors and the government.

BY JEONG HYE-JEONG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]