YOUTH TAKING CARE OF SICK FAMILY MEMBERS

[Anchor Lead]

Teenagers and young adults in their 20s still need to be cared for or should get ready to start their own careers, but some of them have to take on the load of looking after sick family members and making ends meet. There aren’t even official data on young people caring for their loved ones by themselves.

[Pkg]

Lee Su-gyeong’s childhood was all about taking care of her ill father. He suffered from liver cirrhosis and became paraplegic, leaving him bed-ridden for more than four years.

[Soundbite] Lee Su-gyeong(22 years old) : "When I was a high school senior, I would work the night shift at a convenience store until early in the morning and then go to school and then go home to take care of my father."

She had to take greater responsibility in her teens when she herself needed to be cared for.

[Soundbite] Lee Su-gyeong(22 years old) : "The whole process of caring for my father seemed to force me to choose between my life and my father’s."

Households with children in their teens and 20s taking care of their parents by themselves lie outside of welfare protection as their number hasn’t even been tabulated. oughly 460,000 basic livelihood welfare recipients are in their 20s or younger. Most of them are estimated to look after their sick parents or grandparents. The government provides nursing services, but the process of applying for the service and receiving vouchers are too difficult for minors or young adults to navigate.

[Soundbite] Koh Ki-jeung(Children’s Rights Project Team, Goodneighbors) : "Someone should go find them and help them. But the system is not structured to do so if they don’t apply for help. It’s a structural problem."

Experts emphasize the responsibility of caring for the sick should not rest solely on families. t should be shared by the entire society.

[Soundbite] Prof. Seok Jae-eun(Dept. of Social Welfare, Hallym Univ.) : "The issue has grown beyond our capacity to handle it. Society should be primarily responsible for taking care of the sick, while minors and while minors and young adults need only maintain emotional ties."

If young adults on the verge of starting their own careers are not properly educated and are trapped in caring for family members, their chances of moving up the social ladder will be gone. In order to sever this vicious cycle, the issue of young adults caring for their parents alone should be defined and assistance should be provided to them.