The Ministry of Health and Welfare will push to expand the enrollment quota for nursing school seats along with the expansion of medical school students for the 2025 academic year.
The ministry aims to increase the number of nursing school students by about 1,000 from the 2025 academic year and discuss the matter by forming a subcommittee in the Healthcare Policy Review Deliberation Committee.
Lim Kang-seop, director of the ministry's Nursing Policy Division, said so in a phone interview with Korea Biomedical Review on Tuesday while commenting on the expansion of nursing school students.
"We will form a specialized committee on nursing manpower within the Healthcare Policy Deliberation Committee to discuss expanding the number of nursing students,” Lim said. “The nursing school capacity is different from the medical school enrollment quota, as we have increased the number of nursing school students by 700 annually from the 2019 academic year to this year. We aim to increase the expansion scale from the 2025 academic year from 700 to 1,000 yearly.”
The number of nursing students has been continuously increased. So, there may be differences over the increase scale but not over the increase itself, Lim explained. “The government has yet to set a goal concerning the total number, except we will increase the number of students by 1,000 annually from the 2025 academic year, he added.
In response, an official from the Korean Nursing Association told KBR, "It has been our official position to create a subcommittee on the nursing workforce. However, we still have no position on the specific level of increase. We will express a position only when there is a concrete proposal to expand the number of students."
However, others expressed negative views on the expansion of nursing school students.
"Until now, the number of nurses has been increased indiscriminately without any standards or effectiveness measures while the medical community and local communities were not prepared," said an official from the nursing community. "This leads to a vicious circle of nurses leaving the clinical field due to low wages and other reasons."
The official went on to say, "We should discuss and evaluate whether it is appropriate to expand the number of nursing students through a specialized committee."
Meanwhile, the ministry’s push to increase the number of nursing school students by 1,000 will likely affect the expansion of medical school students.
If the government and the nursing community agree to increase the number of nursing school seats by 1,000 to expand essential and local medical care without much disagreement or conflict, it is likely to put pressure on the medical community.
In addition, if the government and the medical community decide to expand the number of nursing students through a specialized committee under the Health Policy Deliberation Committee, the center of gravity of the discussion on expanding the number of medical students may shift to the specialized committee on medical personnel under the committee instead of the current council between the government and doctors, medical community sources said.