Shinan-gun Realizes 'Visiting Health and Welfare Integrated Service'

Activating Home Health Care to Eliminate Welfare Blind Spots

Scenic View of Sinan County Office (Photo by Sinan County)

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Ki-woon] Sinan-gun, Jeollanam-do (Governor Park Woo-ryang) announced on the 3rd that it will actively transform the visiting health management service into proactive administration to enhance the regular visitation system and lead the promotion of elderly welfare through support and care, in response to the increasing health management needs of the elderly in the ultra-aged society.

Sinan-gun, characterized by its island geography and an elderly population of 34%, as well as many health-vulnerable groups, faces conditions where there are many households requiring visits but only minimal visiting health management personnel are working, making it difficult to activate visiting health management tasks.

Most health-vulnerable groups require complex welfare services, making the integration of health and welfare services and linkage with external resources essential.

Until now, welfare tasks were handled by the eup/myeon offices, and health management services were provided by the public health center’s visiting health management service, resulting in limitations in providing integrated service access to vulnerable groups.

In consideration of these difficulties, Sinan-gun will place visiting nurses in eup/myeon offices starting in February to realize field-centered services by strengthening health and welfare linkage and collaboration, establishing a close-contact service for residents and a follow-up management system.

Follow-up management will not stop at health and welfare but will extend to all areas requiring minor assistance such as electricity, water supply, drainage, cleaning, and surrounding environment. Visiting nurses will inspect these areas, and relevant departments will develop comprehensive measures to support necessary matters, promoting systematic establishment of visiting management.

Park Woo-ryang, Governor of Sinan-gun, said, “We will greatly increase the number of visiting nurses, organize the visiting management system, and document support results to discover elderly residents in need of health management in the region and provide integrated health management services. We will do our best to ensure this.” He added, “Through the visiting health management services provided by visiting nurses, we will take the lead in helping the elderly and vulnerable live healthy and happy later years.”

Meanwhile, last year, Sinan-gun managed visits to about 6,200 households eligible for visiting health management services, providing health management education, health programs, and community health and welfare services.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.