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NMC discriminates against provincial colleges in hiring nurses
  • By Kwak Sung-sun
  • Published 2017.08.08 17:48
  • Updated 2017.08.08 17:48
  • comments 0

National Medical Center (NMC) has been caught applying differential employment criteria to hiring nurses according to the locations of their colleges. The state-run hospital made separate criteria for document screening in addition to the general one, in hiring nurses from among graduates-to-be of nursing colleges.

The Auditory Office of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW)보건복지부 said its inspection of NMC had ferreted out many irregularities related to examinations for service.

Especially, there were many problems with hiring nurses, it said. The NMC’s personnel management guideline stipulates that it “should not set unreasonable limits about sex, physical condition, appearance, schooling, and age, to guarantee fair opportunities for applicants.”

However, the hospital separated nurse employment between licensed nurses and graduates-to-be and arranged different criteria for passing document screening for the latter group.

NMC국립중앙의료원 differentiated the grading criteria by dividing their colleges into several groups – colleges in Seoul, national colleges, colleges in Gyeonggi Province and seven large cities, and colleges in provincial cities outside of metropolises and Gyeonggi Province – and the farther their colleges from Seoul, the tougher their acceptance criteria get.

The hospital didn’t even keep these inappropriate standards in actual employment, however.

The audit found out in the document screening of would-be graduates conducted in August 2016, 73 applicants whose grades fell short of the criteria passed it while 100 who met the criteria standards failed.

“The criteria for hiring nurses are unreasonable because they discriminated against graduates by the locations of their colleges, which restricts the provision of fair opportunities,” the ministry said. “The hospital worked out irrational standards and did not even observe them, severely destroying the principles of personnel management.”

The ministry instructed the hospital to revise quickly the criteria of document screening that runs counter to personnel rules and discipline two officials responsible for committing such irregularities.

The hospital was also known to have failed to follow proper procedures in hiring administrative employees.

NMC should have advance provisions on the process and methods of hiring administrative workers, but let related departments decide the acceptance by discretion without unified regulations in the seven employment procedures since 2014, the ministry said.

“It is hard to judge whether people were qualified to be hired or to make an objective ranking list from the document screening standards that each team submitted. Different criteria were applied to same administrative positions,” it said.

Also, the hospital failed to select examiners appropriately for the interview test.

NMC should have assured fairness by letting outside experts take part in the interviews, but it has chosen questioners from among only insiders in the job interviews conducted since 2014.

The hospital prepared grounds to invite outside examines by working out a plan to improve employment process in December 2016, but has never turned words into action, the ministry pointed out.

The ministry warned the organization, saying, “NMC ought to do all it can to improve and operate systems to ensure fair and transparent management of examination for service.”

kss@docdocdoc.co.kr

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