Hospitals to hire backup staff for parental leave

General hospitals and other medical institutions will soon be required to hire backup staff for health care workers taking parental leave, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said Thursday. Tertiary hospitals must calculate the number of hours lost over the past three years when doctors, nurses and medical technicians took leave related to childbirth and child care — including leave for miscarriages, stillbirths and infertility treatments — and then add that number to the average number of hours