President Yoon Suk Yeol exercised his veto power against the opposition-led Nursing Act, Tuesday, despite continued calls from nurses to sign it into law.
The president made the decision during a Cabinet meeting, siding with doctors, nursing assistants and other medical workers, who claim the act will only divide the medical profession and cause conflict and confusion.
In protest against the president’s decision that could eventually lead to the scrapping of the bill, the nurses’ association threatened to begin collective action.
Independent from the Medical Services Act, the Nursing Act is aimed at clarifying the scope of nurses’ duties and improving their working conditions. Nurses claim the Medical Services Act views them as being subordinate to physicians. Also, due to ambiguities in the current law, nurses say they are often forced to perform duties outside of their job descriptions, leading to overwork and difficulty in providing quality care for patients. But doctors call the Nursing Act “an evil law,” claiming that its enactment may allow nurses to intervene in the duties of physicians, causing confusion in hospitals, which may threaten patients’ safety.
A veto override requires a two-thirds vote in the National Assembly. Falling short of that majority leads to the scrapping of the bill.
The presidential veto came 20 days after the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), which controls more than half of the 300-seat National Assembly, railroaded the law at the Assembly’s plenary session, despite a boycott by the ruling People Power Party and fierce opposition from medical workers except nurses.
“The Nursing Act has caused excessive conflict between medical professionals,” Yoon said during the Cabinet meeting. “The move to separate nursing from medical institutions has also caused people to feel anxious about their health. It was regrettable that the Assembly failed to resolve such conflict and anxiety during its deliberation.”
President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office, Tuesday. Yonhap
This marked Yoon’s second veto since taking office, after he rejected a controversial revision to the Grain Management Act early last month, which required the government to purchase surplus rice from farmers.
At the time, the Assembly held a revote to override the presidential veto, but fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to do so.
Yoon pushed ahead with his second veto despite the risk of nurses’ collective walkout as well as the opposition party accusing the president of ignoring the Assembly’s legislative power.
Explaining his reasoning behind the decision, Yoon said people’s health should always come before anything else, while cooperation between various groups of medical workers is essential to properly maintain it.
The Korean Nurses Association criticized the president for “breaking his own promise” he made during the election campaign to legislate the law for nurses.
“We will never stop our struggle for the law legislation,” said Kim Young-kyeong, who heads the association, during a press conference held in front of the presidential office.
The association noted its members will decide on the methods of their collective action, which would likely begin today at the earliest.
The association said earlier that 98.6 percent of its members agreed with the need for collective action in case of the presidential veto.
Meanwhile, a coalition of medical workers’ organizations, led by the Korea Medical Association (KMA) ― the doctors’ group ― welcomed Yoon’s veto against the law, vowing to put off its plan to begin a larger strike that was set for today.
The coalition held partial strikes on May 3 and May 11 in protest against the opposition party’s unilateral passage of the bill. It has threatened to go on a larger strike if the president does not veto the law.
“We will decide our future action after monitoring the development of situations regarding the law,” a representative of the coalition said during its press conference held in front of the KMA building.
