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| ▲ President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Seoul on May 16, 2023. (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ A Cabinet meeting led by President Yoon Suk Yeol is held at the presidential office in Seoul on May 16, 2023. (Yonhap) |
(LEAD) Yoon-nursing act
(LEAD) Yoon rejects nursing act in his second veto
(ATTN: UPDATES with Yoon's veto; CHANGES headline, photo)
By Lee Haye-ah
SEOUL, May 16 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk Yeol vetoed the opposition-led nursing act Tuesday amid strong protests from doctors and nursing assistants against it, in his second veto of a bill since he took office.
The act, which was railroaded by the main opposition Democratic Party last month, is aimed at stipulating the roles and responsibilities of nurses, and improving their working conditions.
"The people's health cannot be exchanged for anything," Yoon said during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office, before rejecting the legislation and asking the National Assembly to reconsider it.
Yoon said people's health comes ahead of anything else, such as politics, foreign policy and economic policy, and can only be properly maintained through cooperation between various groups of medical professionals.
"The nursing act is creating excessive conflict between these related groups, and the move to separate nursing services from medical institutions is causing people to feel anxious about their health," he said.
"It is very regrettable that such social conflict and anxiety were not resolved through sufficient consultations between groups and sufficient deliberation by the National Assembly," he added.
The ruling People Power Party and the government agreed during a high-level policy consultation meeting Sunday to ask Yoon to veto the bill, saying it would take the people's health and lives hostage.
Doctors and nursing assistants have opposed the bill, arguing the legislation would cause confusion in the medical sector because it could lead to nurses opening their own clinics without doctors' supervision and that nursing assistants could be discriminated against.
Nurses tout the bill as essential in redefining their work as a more independent and professional service amid growing medical needs. They also argue that the act was one of Yoon's campaign promises ahead of last year's presidential election.
This was the second time Yoon vetoed a bill after he rejected a revision to the Grain Management Act last month, which required the government purchase of surplus rice.
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