Profile_Jan 3/17/11 9:29 PM Page 14
Seoul Sisters
Though on the other side of the globe, the Korean
Health and Medical Workers Union fights for the
same things as National Nurses United: ratios, worker
rights, and healthcare for all. By Lucia Hwang
I
magine that you work med-surg at a medium-sized acutecare hospital and that your typical patient load on a shift is
15 patients, all of pretty severe acuity. No, it's not 1989 or a
rural hospital. It's 2011 and you work in South Korea.
Like National Nurses United, winning safe RN-to-patient
staffing ratios is among the top priorities of the Korean
Health and Medical Workers Union, which represents about
42,000 nurses, medical engineers, aides, pharmacists, and
other healthcare workers in hospitals across South Korea.
KHMU members and staff this February visited California on a
fact-finding mission to learn exactly how ratios are put into practice
in the state, the first in the United States to enjoy such protections
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for nurses and patients. The Korean nurses both shadowed California RNs on the job, and interviewed them outside of work to determine how their jobs are similar and different.
"We are still thinking about what number to propose in Korea,"
said Yoo Ji Hyun, RN and secretary general of KMHU. "To start,
we're looking at a range from 1:5 to 1:10. But the hospital industry is
attacking that, saying that 1:10 in Korea is about the same as 1:5 in
the United States. That's why we've come to compare actual nursing
tasks to refute their argument."
KHMU's quest for ratios started at an international conference
on nurse staffing held last September in Korea, at which CNA/NNU
representatives described their fight to win and defend mandatory,
W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G
MARCH 2011
