This is like how American schools are authorizing unqualified people to be teachers to “resolve” the teacher shortage. It’s not “empowering,” it’s a dangerous short-term solution that they’re choosing over fixing the actual issue because that would require making actual positive change.
Problem here is a bit more complicated.I’t seems South Korea is the developed country with less doctors per capita in the world. And when the gov approved a plan to increase the numbers of yearly doctors in universities, existing doctors went full strike - they want to keep that monopoly.
Not quite that easy either, from my understanding they’re not paid like doctors in other developed countries, i.e. it’s not a top paying job. And they see this as a threat to “solving” that issue. Now we could argue that doctors maybe are overpaid in many cases, and if they’re “really” underpaid then opening up more slots for education won’t actually lead to any more applicants, thus the shortage will continue until salaries increase.
So I still think that the doctor strike is iffy.
Ah, my mistake. I’m surprised people can be so publicly selfish as to actively strike against the notion that there should be a greater amount of people who can save lives…
Nurses will now be allowed to perform some medical procedures previously reserved for doctors, and offered immunity from potential lawsuits linked to their new scope of work, Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo said.
So not only are the “empowering” nurses to do things the aren’t authorized to do, they won’t be liable for any harm they cause.
Maybe the government should meet the doctors demands instead of trying literally everything else
While the solution seems flimsy at best, reading the article makes things a bit more complicated. As far as I can tell, what doctors are striking against is a raise in the admission numbers for medical schools, as they think it will worsen working conditions.
Major hospitals are struggling to provide services after thousands of junior medics handed in their resignations and stopped working last week to protest against government plans to sharply increase medical school admissions in the face of a rapidly ageing society.
Seoul says it has one of the lowest doctor-to-population ratios among developed countries and the government is pushing hard to admit 2,000 more students to medical schools annually from next year.
So what are the doctors striking for? This sounds like a good thing?
I agree, and your guess is as good as mine.
This isn’t empowering, but more like exploiting.
Maybe it’s different in SK, but in many countries nurse is a very hard working low paying job with too many responsibilities already. Adding doctors’ jobs on that pile wouldn’t help anyone.
Disclaimer: my wife was a nurse.
Fuck this is bullshit, doctors go on strike so they just authorise nurses to do many of their jobs. As if nurses need more workload.
What a fucked healthcare system.