Gangdong-gu (Mayor: Lee Hae-sik) established a ‘comprehensive plan for elder care service’ to provide a practical and customized welfare service for elders over the age of sixty-five within the jurisdiction of the district and began promotion of the project.

 In December 2017, the total population of elders amounted to 21% of the entirety of Gangdong-gu with 12,055 elders who lived alone. Gangdong-gu plans to carry out this project, concentrating on 5,363 elders who either live alone or need care as everyday life becomes more difficult for them.

 The program will be formed from eighteen particular projects in seven fields that include △ safety checks, △ domiciliary care, △improvement in residential environment, △ advancement in social relationships, △ secure livelihood of old age, △ provision of information and △ others (provided by appropriate divisions). 

 If existing elder care projects were operated based on domiciliary services and safety, the program this year will offer additional support of a new welfare service that will focus on the individual characteristics and needs of elders.

 For example, there are projects in production such as the ‘beautiful accompaniment that creates happiness’ in which elders who live alone can make friends in the village, the ‘adult voluntary guardianship for elders who live alone’ which offers assistance to elders with cognitive decline or who have been abused or left alone and the ‘Elder Welfare Notice,’ a comprehensive guide to welfare information.

 Among these, the new project ‘beautiful accompaniment that creates happiness’ will discover 200 elders with high levels of sense of isolation and depression due to lack of social relationships and organize self-help groups in each village to help the elders form positive relationships with society, neighbors and the district. Gangdong-gu is in the process of selecting recipients for this program and plans to hold an orientation in May.

 The ‘safety check service’ will include a secure phone of love, a health and safety care solution (IoT), no-no (old-old) care, free meals for low-income elders, safety protectors of elders who live alone and elder watchers.

 The ‘health and safety care solution (IoT),’ a trial project by Seoul in 2017, installed devices with IoT (Internet of Things) sensors attached to seventy-five homes of elders who live alone for real-time monitoring of their levels of activity, carrying out a role in protecting the safety of the elders. Last February, upon confirmation through a IoT device that there had been no movement for eight hours, an official reported this to emergency service personnel (119) who successfully saved an elder who had fallen.

The ‘domiciliary service’ includes a comprehensive elder care service that offers aid for household chores and activities of elders who need assistance with their movements, a 1-2-month, short-term household chore service, a domiciliary nursing service for elders with temporary sicknesses and a Seoul domiciliary management project.

 Gangdong-gu will also further the ‘residential environment improvement project,’ which offers kitchen sink repairs and safe gas circuit breakers for improvements in the lives of low-income elders.

 Mayor Lee Hae-sik stated, “We are in the process of examining things that elders absolutely need such as a secure livelihood, health and prevention of dying in solitude, and we have been discovering various projects to address these matters,” and “We will continue to construct a strong local safety net so that elders can live in peace.”

 Gangdong-gu further partnered with various departments and organizations including the Public Health Center, the Mental Health Welfare Center, and the Center for Dementia to oversee the healthy mindsets of elders, offer visiting health care services, manage and prevent depression, and offer dementia tests, etc. to support the mental health of elders.

  <Related Photos>

• 

  Comprehensive guidebook, ‘Elder Welfare Notice’

  

  Agreement ceremony of safety protectors of elders who live alone

•