As the resignations of interns and residents enter a second month, various healthcare workers, including nurses, are reeling from the growing workload.

Especially worrying is not only physician assistant (PA) nurses but also general-duty nurses are being forced to do doctors' work, resulting in a dangerous situation, sources said.

In a press release issued on Tuesday, the Korean Health and Medical Workers Union (KHMU) pointed out that the government is carrying out a pilot project to fill the medical void in the nursing workforce, increasing their workload.

Since March 8, the government has been implementing a pilot project on nurses' work, allowing physicians to relegate some of their duties to nurses. In the event of an accident, it requires heads of medical institutions to take responsibility for civil and criminal liability.

"PA nurses are taking over the workload of doctors and are being forced to do medical practices. In some cases, general-duty nurses are suddenly converted to PA nurses and are assigned to doctors' work," the union said. “Nurses are almost forcibly assigned to doctors' work without education or training and under pressure from the hospital's management, which says, ‘If you don’t do it, the hospital will go bankrupt.’”

In some cases, new nurses with no experience are assigned as PA nurses, while PA nurses are hired as contract workers with job insecurity, the union said, adding that untrained general nurses are also put into intensive care units, which require a high level of experience and skill.

"It's a 'manpower crisis,'" it said. "The normal operation system is disrupted by the refusal of interns and residents to treat patients, and works requiring high expertise, skill, and responsibility are being done abnormally, creating a precarious situation where accidents may occur at any time."

As training hospitals have entered emergency management, concerns are also mounting among healthcare workers about possible delays in payment of wages.

"Workers at major training hospitals are also facing a 'direct hit' from the denial of medical treatment. Hospitals have entered an emergency management system by sharply reducing surgeries, tests, and hospitalizations," the union said. "As a result, workers defending medical sites even in the worst medical crisis are being forced to take unpaid annual leave and threatened with back wages."

The union said that in training hospitals that have declared emergency management, unpaid leave, and layoffs are being forced, assignments are being changed unilaterally, volunteers are being sent to other jobs, and the hiring and training of new employees are being postponed. As the situation continues, anxiety about the closure or suspension of hospital operations and wage arrears increases.

Against this backdrop, the union made five demands on the government and the medical community.

They are the unconditional return of trainee doctors to the medical field and withdrawal of professors’ resignation; an end to coercive measures against junior doctors and the initiation of dialogue between the government and the medical community to normalize medical practice; measures to improve the poor working conditions and practice environment of trainee doctors and medical professors; mobilization of political parties and parliamentary election candidates to normalize medical practice; and an end to measures to force healthcare workers to sacrifice and compensate them.

"The crippled operation of teaching hospitals must no longer be allowed to continue," it said. "Medical institutions are run by the collaboration of physicians, nurses, medical technicians, office workers, and many others. They are not expendables to be used and discarded when needed. Their suffering must no longer be ignored."