Protests have erupted among nurses in South Korea after President Yoon Suk-yeol vetoed a controversial bill aiming to define the roles and duties of nurses and improve their working conditions.
The opposition-led National Assembly passed the bill last month, but Yoon vetoed it on Tuesday over concerns that it could cause confusion among medical workers and endanger public health, Yonhap News Agency reported.
Yoon’s veto was met with condemnation from nurses, who argued that the bill served as a legal framework to improve their working conditions and legally define their roles and responsibilities to protect them from excessive workloads.
The existing Medical Service Act mandates that nurses perform under the guidance of medical doctors, but it does not clarify their roles and duties. As a result, many nurses had to comply with doctors’ directions and work in assisting capacities due to the lack of role definitions….