Health ministry says parliament passes 10 health-related bills

The health ministry said Thursday that parliament passed 10 bills under its remit, including a new cosmetics-industry law and measures on medication safety, National Pension investments and nursing standards.

The cosmetics law will require a plan to support the industry, establish an industry support committee, certify innovative cosmetics companies and support their entry into overseas markets.

An amendment to the National Pension Act creates a legal basis for considering environmental, social and governance factors in the National Pension's alternative investments. Fund-management guidelines must include criteria and methods for such ESG considerations.

The Pharmacy Act changes will require pharmacists dispensing narcotics or psychotropic drugs to check medication information through the Drug Utilization Review, or DUR, system. The amendment also adds remote-care intermediaries to grounds for disqualification from medicine-wholesaler licenses.

Drug wholesalers will be barred from selling medicines, directly or through other wholesalers, to pharmacies that have user contracts with remote-care intermediaries related to the wholesaler. The ministry said the changes would help prevent drug misuse and establish an orderly medicine distribution and sales system.

Under the Nursing Act amendment, the health minister will set nurse-to-patient standards for hospital-level medical institutions, taking account of patients' characteristics and severity, institutional type, and nurses' work arrangements and departments. Medical institutions must disclose staffing levels, and evaluations should take account of compliance with the standards.

The bills now go to the cabinet before taking effect.