Pregnant health staff face discrimination

Lack of child care facilities another burden after their return to work


A growing number of hospital workers including nurses, doctors and assistant medical staff are women, but their working environment is still difficult for balancing career and family.

In a desperate bid to keep their career ongoing in the male-centered system, they take turns being pregnant, curtail their maternity leave “voluntarily,” and some even give up having children completely.

According to a Korean Medical Women’s Association report to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Affairs, about one-third of 535 female doctors, including residents and interns, are now saying they will not have children. They blamed their extreme workloads and stress, as well as possible career disadvantages. They feared that they will be left behind in the fierce competition in the medical field if they choose to become mothers, with 40 percent saying that sexual discrimination was rampant.

Chung, a 31-year-old resident doctor at a large general hospital in Seoul, is one of them. She decided to postpone having children just five months after her wedding.

“There is practically no replacement available while I am gone on leave. The hospital is already running with the minimum number of staff and taking months off is a large burden on the whole team,” she said.

The fact that her future career depends heavily on her mostly male professors and other staff’s evaluations also makes her reluctant to start a family.

“If they think having a woman in the team could cause a vacuum in manpower, they simply won’t help me get to the next level,” she said.

“Women make up about 39.5 percent of resident doctors nationwide and their portion is expected to rise as more women are admitted to medical schools,” Park Kyung-ah, head of the KMWA, said. “But in reality, it is hard for them to have one child and nearly impossible to have a second one,” she added.

Such cases are more distinct among nurses and other health workers in hospitals. According to the Korea Health and Medical Workers’ Union, women account for 80 percent of hospital workers except for doctors.

However, in a 2011 survey of 19,363 members, a majority of respondents said they have experienced various discrimination regarding pregnancy.

Of those surveyed, 29.4 percent had to take a night shift while they were pregnant, which is prohibited by law, and 20.1 percent had had a miscarriage. About 8 percent had undergone an abortion and 15.9 percent intentionally planned their pregnancies on a rotation schedule. The Gender Ministry acknowledged that some hospitals demand female workers sign an “oath” for selective pregnancy, but the majority of cases are “voluntary.”

“It is a usual thing,” said a 32-year-old nurse at a teaching hospital in Seoul. “Everyone wants to have babies when they are young, healthy and fertile, but the reality is that you get to have children when you are aged and less healthy, stained from stress and fatigued, because you have waited for years. The scary thing is that the ‘rule’ has been drawn up by our seniors, not the hospital. It must have been the last solution to keep the working process going around and let people become mothers,” she said.

A lack of child care facilities in hospitals is another burden for women after they return to their daily duties.

According to research by the Hospital Nurses’ Association in 2009, 49.7 percent of hospitals with more than 150 beds did not have childcare facilities. The law calls for workplaces with more than 300 workers to have in-house or designated childcare institutions.

“Unless the hospitals come up with measures, childbirth will remain a struggle for female workers,” Song Jae-rim, head of the Daejeon Nurses’ Association, was quoted as saying to a local daily.

The spokesman of a general hospital in Seoul admitted that working conditions for female workers are not good.

“All the high-ranking officials and doctors are men, who seem less flexible with female issues. But things are getting better little by little as more women are working at the hospital,” he added.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare revised a law last year to better support female residents who take maternity leave during their traineeship so that they do not have to fear being flunked or other disadvantages.

“It will encourage female doctors to have children during their apprenticeships,” an official said.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)