Gwangju City Councilor Park Mijeong: "Urgent Need to Improve Care Workers' Treatment"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] Park Mi-jung (The Minjoo Party, Dong-gu 2), a member of the Gwangju Metropolitan Council, on the 10th, urged the urgency of improving the treatment of care workers at nursing care institutions who are exposed to low wages and high-intensity working conditions amid a surge in demand for elderly care services due to the aftermath of COVID-19 and the increase in the elderly population who have not prepared for their later years.

In an emergency issue inquiry on the same day, Councilor Park stated, “The elderly population in Gwangju is approaching 200,000, which is 14% of the total population,” and added, “According to Article 14 of the Long-Term Care Insurance Act for the Elderly, which stipulates the responsibilities of the government and local governments, it is necessary to realize ‘A Better Care Community Gwangju’ through securing the public nature of care and a policy shift that guarantees the quality of employment for care workers.”

She particularly pointed out, “Although there are social demands for improving the treatment of care workers, among the 4 billion 4 hundred million won budget for 16 projects in 4 areas of the ‘Gwangju Metropolitan City Long-Term Care Worker Support Three-Year Plan,’ excluding the existing special allowances of about 3.4 billion won and the budget for establishing the Long-Term Care Worker Support Center according to the 2018 Ministry of Health and Welfare guidelines, the increase is very minimal. This raises concerns not only about the decline in morale of frontline elderly care workers in harsh environments but also about the qualitative deterioration of care services.”

He continued, “The average tenure of the person in charge of Gwangju’s welfare policy control tower during the 7th local government term is only 7 months and 10 days on average. The damage caused by unprofessional welfare administration and complacent policy formulation due to lack of policy awareness inevitably falls on the beneficiaries of care services themselves,” expressing concern.

He also emphasized, “The complacency and lack of professionalism in administration lead to the absence of basic data for social welfare policies, resulting in ineffective, showy policies that the beneficiaries cannot feel, becoming a typical example of inefficient desk administration.”

Councilor Park said, “Despite Gwangju having the highest number of nursing medical institutions nationwide, the treatment of care workers remains at the lowest level,” and urged, “Because they are not classified as social welfare facilities, care workers at nursing medical institutions are marginalized with treatment improvement plans that are more regressive than the central government’s long-term care service quality assurance measures. I hope that the administration will break away from rigidity and contribute to improving the quality of care through securing publicness with proactive administration.”

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