진행자: 홍유, Elise Youn

Crisis in medical system builds as hospital workers plan walkout

[1] Amid a prolonged medical standoff, concerns are again looming large as more than 22,000 unionized hospital workers plan to strike beginning Thursday if the ongoing arbitration by the labor relations committee fails to reach an agreement on a pay raise and the normalization of hospital operations.

prolonged: 오래 계속되는, 장기적인

loom: 곧 닥칠 것처럼 보이다

arbitration: 중재

[2] The planned walkout comes after 91 percent of the Korean Health and Medical Workers' Union -- which has some 30,000 nurses, caregivers and other medical workers at 61 hospitals as members -- voted to strike. Of the 24,257 members who voted, 22,101 agreed.

walkout: 파업

caregiver: 간병인

[3] The collective action also comes as hospitals bear the brunt of staffing shortages due to junior doctors' collective walkout in February. At the same time, emergency medicine professors, who double as senior physicians, are quitting in droves due to poor working conditions coupled with fatigue.

bear the brunt of: 에 정면으로 맞서다

fatigue: 피로

[4] However, the union noted that those working in emergency rooms and intensive care units and treating severely ill hospitalized patients will stay. Workers at the country's five biggest general hospitals will also not join the action.

intensive: 집중적인

severely: 극심한, 심각한

기사원문: https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240827050523