HEALTHCARE WORKERS WARN OF STRIKE

[Anchor Lead]

Healthcare workers have been exhausted and overrun by the continuing coronavirus crisis and this is another serious problem in the nation’s battle against the pandemic. The government has always promised to recruit more manpower. But the issue has never been resolved. Unionized healthcare workers are now warning that they will stage a general strike next month.

[Pkg]

Dressed in full-body protective suits, medical workers are soaked in sweat after attending to patients for hours. The standing rule is that they work in a protective suit for no more than two hours before swaping for another worker. But their shifts frequently exceed four hours.

[Soundbite] Moon Se-ram(COVID-19 Ward Nurse) : "I sweat a lot and even my shoes are all wet with sweat. It is also extremely draining to see patients getting more sick."

The number of medical workers is limited and COVID-19 patients are continuing to come in. So they can hardly make time to rest, except for taking brief showers.

[Soundbite] (COVID-19 Ward Nurse) : "We expected there would be improvements after the MERS outbreak. But, in the front lines, it's hard to tell what changes are evident."

Amid the coronavirus crisis that has lasted for more than one and a half years, the union of healthcare workers has been demanding more personnel be deployed to the front-lines of the battle with the virus. They also ask the government to legally guarantee a top cap on the number of patients assigned to each nurse, rather than sending COVID-19 patients into hospitals randomly. Unionized healthcare workers also demand special compensation for the risks they face as well as the predictable operations of work shifts.

[Soundbite] "Expand the public medical sector!"

However, their requests have not been accepted yet. So the union submitted a dispute settlement application to the Labor Relations Commission.

[Soundbite] Kim Young-soo(Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union) : "We will stage protests in front of the finance ministry that is in charge of appropriating budgets and personnel, as well as before the health ministry."

The union has some 60,000 members from 134 medical institutions across the nation, including the National Medical Center and major university hospitals.

[Soundbite] Park Hyang(Central Disaster Management HQs) : "We are now devising standards on increasing medical workers to treat COVID-19 patients. We are working to recruit more personnel via various routes. But we seek understandings for the difficulty in the process."

The union plans to launch a general strike on September 2 following a vote, if its negotiations with the government collapse and don’t produce productive outcomes.