[Anchor]
The government has been providing specialized care services to ease the burden on families caring for individuals with severe developmental disabilities. However, families in desperate need of help are finding themselves waiting months after applying for the services.
Reporter Park Ha-jeong looked into the issue.
[Reporter]
Mr. A shows no reaction even when a remote control is placed in his hand.
[Turn on the TV and watch.]
He is a 29-year-old with a developmental disability living in Hwasun, South Jeolla Province.
Marks remain inside the house where he broke furniture, including a door, after exhibiting so-called challenging behaviors such as self-harm and aggression toward others.
After more than 20 years of caregiving, his mother still worries anxiously whenever Mr. A is left alone at home.
[Mr. A's Mother: People around me say, 'Why don't you send him to a facility?' But there are actually no facilities that can take him. They won't accept him because he cannot handle personal hygiene or bodily functions.]
With no proper care facilities available, his mother applied to the local government for the "Integrated Care Service for Individuals with Severe Developmental Disabilities," which was created for people like Mr. A, and received notice in March that he had been selected.
However, what followed was a continuous wait.
She waited four months under the pretext that there was no care staff, and in July, when someone was barely found, she was told that the budget had run out.
[Mr. A's Mother (Phone call in July): Are you toying with people? Then you shouldn't have created such a service in the first place. Are you making a mockery of us?]
[Official at the South Jeolla Developmental Disabilities Support Center (Phone call in July): I have to tell you that you will need to go back on the waiting list.]
[Mr. A's Mother (Phone call in July): You might as well just tell us to go die because we're useless human beings.]
The care worker who was recruited with such difficulty has since quit again.
[Official at Hwasun County Office (Is there any timeframe for when hiring will take place?): We are in a situation where we have to wait for a job posting.]
There are about 800 individuals with severe developmental disabilities nationwide receiving this service.
Statistics are not even being tracked for people like Mr. A who were selected as eligible but are still unable to receive the service.
Because the government does not allocate sufficient budgets to local governments out of concern that funds might be left over, and because the budget that can be used is fixed by each type of developmental disability care, local government budgets are frequently depleted early.
[Kim Mi-ok / Professor, Department of Social Welfare, Jeonbuk National University: What if we ease the barriers so that the budget can be used flexibly between different types? I think we need to enhance the completion of the system into one centered on users that alleviates the caregiving burden on families.]
The government has decided to increase the related budget by 16.9 billion KRW next year, but rigid barriers between care types remain, and the additional monthly allowance for care workers is only 200,000 KRW, leaving it uncertain whether the care shortage will be resolved.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
(Reported by Yang Hyun-chul | Video edited by Park Na-young | Design by Seo Seung-hyun)
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