[Inside Chodong] The Path to a Country Without Elderly Caregiving Worries

Jo In-kyung, Content Manager of the Industry Division

A, who has placed his elderly mother suffering from cerebral infarction in a nursing hospital, bears a monthly hospital bill of about 1.3 million won. One caregiver looks after six patients, but during the period when his mother used a single room due to severe pneumonia, the caregiving cost alone exceeded 4 million won per month because an additional caregiver was hired. A said, “As a retired child, I am afraid of how long I can continue to pay the hospital bills and how much more caregiving costs will be needed if her condition worsens.”

At the end of last year, the government announced measures to reduce caregiving burdens, aiming to create a ‘country without caregiving worries.’ This policy was introduced as caregiving became a social issue to the extent that tragic terms like ‘caregiving bankruptcy,’ ‘caregiving hell,’ and even ‘caregiving murder’ emerged.

First, the government expanded and reorganized the ‘Integrated Nursing and Caregiving Service,’ where nurses take on caregiving duties, so that severely ill patients such as those undergoing major surgery, dementia, or delirium patients can receive care services without hiring caregivers. Until now, this service was only available in some wards and was mostly used by relatively mild patients. The goal is to increase users from about 2.3 million last year to 4 million by 2027, reducing caregiving costs by 10.7 trillion won (2024?2027). When using the Integrated Nursing and Caregiving Service, instead of personally hiring a caregiver, patients pay about 20,000 won more per day under health insurance coverage. However, the field emphasizes that securing sufficient personnel such as nurses and nursing assistants is a prerequisite.

Starting this July, a pilot project will begin in which the government supports part of the caregiving costs for nursing hospital inpatients, which have been fully borne by individuals. After operating for one and a half years with 600 patients in 10 nursing hospitals, the plan is to convert it into a full-scale project from January 2027. However, how to cover the enormous financial resources is a problem. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s calculations, applying health insurance benefits to nursing hospital caregiving costs would require up to 15 trillion won annually. This would add to the burden on the National Health Insurance finances, which are expected to start running deficits this year and be depleted by 2028, necessitating alternatives and social consensus. There are also concerns that supporting only nursing hospital caregiving costs while maintaining the current dual elderly care system?nursing hospitals under health insurance and nursing homes under long-term care insurance?may increase ‘social hospitalization,’ where patients who only need outpatient treatment are hospitalized for extended periods.

Instead of the current elderly care system that excessively relies on facilities or hospitals, there are opinions that caregiving hours by care workers should be increased to allow the elderly to live at home, and home care services where nurses or doctors visit to manage health should be expanded. If only caregiving costs are covered by benefits, the government may end up pushing elderly people into nursing hospitals.

Japan, which introduced the ‘Kaigo (caregiving) Insurance System’ in 2000 ahead of us, takes social responsibility for caregiving by supporting 70?90% of caregiving costs for elderly people who need caregiving services. However, due to the rapid increase in the elderly population, caregiving costs have quadrupled compared to when the system was introduced, and recently, in addition to raising insurance premiums, they are considering increasing caregiver salaries to secure caregiving personnel. Although it is difficult to establish a perfect system at once, we must also hasten to create a structure where caregiving is a shared social responsibility. This year, the elderly population in Korea will exceed 10 million. Next year, the proportion of elderly people among the total population will rise to 20.6%, entering a full-fledged super-aged society (where the elderly population is over 20% of the total population). There is no more time to delay.

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