South Korean Parliament To Obligate Hospitals To Install CCTV Cameras In Operating Rooms

SEOUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st September, 2021) The South Korean National Assembly has adopted a law on Tuesday making CCTV cameras mandatory in operating rooms.

The changes aim to protect patients from medical negligence and other illegal actions, including cases in which doctors are replaced with unqualified individuals, as well as sexual offenses against sedated patients.

The law provides for video surveillance at the request of a patient or their legal custodian. Hospitals must save videos for at least thirty days for further use in case of judicial disputes. However, they may be exempted from monitoring in case of emergency operations.

The legislation, proposed by the ruling Democratic Party, will go into effect two years after its publication.

The push for installing cameras in hospitals intensified after a scandal in 2016 when surgeons at private clinics were blamed for assigning nurses and unqualified doctors to perform procedures, with sometimes fatal results. The parliament passed the law after about six years of discussion and despite the objections of medical staff, saying that surveillance will cause mistrust between doctors and patients and ultimately decrease the quality of medical service.