'Hospital use' to find isolated furniture, why not?

<Anchor>

Not long ago, a mother and two daughters who were suffering from hardships were found dead.

But our social safety net did not prevent the family tragedy.

As a result of our coverage, some areas have been trying to find people in need through disease treatment for several years.

The achievements were not small, but this did not extend to other regions.

The reason was covered by reporter Kim Deok-hyun.

<Reporter>

Green Hospital in Jungnang-gu, Seoul.

Another name for this hospital's social work team is the Community Health Center.

If any of the patients who visit the hospital need help, such as medical expenses, share information with community centers and welfare centers and find ways to help.

[After seeing the treatment, you came to our team to consult.

(Community Center) You talked to the teacher first, so...

.]

The model in which medical and welfare institutions in the local community unite was launched in 2013 under the name of '301 Network'.

It was an attempt to unite the three areas of medical care, health care, and welfare.

[Kwon Yong-jin/Professor at Seoul National University Hospital (301 Network Development): It is important to create a specific network where people can ask for and help people in the welfare field, like medical institutions, where the (vulnerable class) visits to the end.

] There was also a case in which a man living in a gosiwon was found, hospitalized, and an elderly woman who refused help was persuaded seven times and connected to various welfare services.

Like 'Songpa Three Mothers and Daughters' in 2014 and this year's 'Suwon Three Mothers and Daughters', many isolated households were suffering from diseases.

Hospital care can be a major channel for finding vulnerable groups.

However, 9 years later, the 301 network model is still not spreading across the country.

The biggest problem is that there is a shortage of experts who can professionally classify vulnerable patients in hospitals and link them to welfare institutions.

Medical social workers in charge of these tasks were only recognized with national qualifications two years ago.

[A Hospital Medical Social Worker: In our hospital, there are about 800 beds, but now there are two medical social workers working.

Opportunities to meet vulnerable patients are really very limited.]

There is also an opinion that the number of medical social workers who are mainly deployed in tertiary general hospitals should be expanded to small and medium-sized hospitals.

(Video editing: Tae-ho Yoon, VJ: Se-gwan Oh·So-young Shin)

---

<Anchor>

Here is reporter Kim Deok-hyun who covered this content.

[Reporter Kim Deok-hyun: Based on the hospital we went to, there were over 800 beds, and there were a lot of outpatients, but there were only two medical social workers deployed here.

This can create blind spots that medical social workers are not aware of, even in hospitals.

In Taiwan, there is one medical social worker for every 100 beds.

You can also refer to this point, and in Korea, medical social workers are mainly deployed in large tertiary general hospitals.

If it is difficult to deploy medical social workers up to this point, it is necessary to establish such a network that provides medical and welfare services in connection with these key hospitals.]

[Reporter Kim Deok-hyun: The government has announced that it will add five more crisis information items to find households in crisis from next month and encourage membership subscriptions that inform welfare information. It takes effort to find furniture a little more actively.

It seems that the voices of these field experts who directly meet the vulnerable, including medical social workers, should be reflected more.]