Nurses At Work

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Nurses have a tough job, but adding to the stress is workplace bullying. The government says it’s taking action. New measures include increasing nursing fees, mandating the hospitals to use the increased profit for nurses’ welfare, and suspending the license of medical service providers guilty of abuse.

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Nurses are not guaranteed time to eat although they are busy taking care of patients without a break. They are even swamped with chores on top of it.

[Soundbite] (Nurse(Voice modified)) : "I think nurses are called to do all kinds of work. We have heavy work loads, but are told to do cleaning work."

The job's high intensity is one of the main reasons why nurses leave their jobs in less than six years on average. Another reason is the bullying that occurs when the more tenured nurses teach nurses with less experience. The government will now toughen penalties, which includes suspending the licenses of hospital staff members found to bully or sexually harass co-workers. Also, the payment criteria for nursing fees would change from "the number of beds" to "the number of patients." The increased hospital profit is to be used for improving the working environment.

[Soundbite] Kwon Deok-cheol(Vice Minister of Health and Welfare) : "It's a first for the government to set up measures to improve the working environment for nurses."

In Korea, the number of nurses per 1,000 people is just half the OECD average. The government plans to have 100,000 more nurses by 2022.