Health ministry plans home-based end-of-life care pilot for next year

The health ministry said Friday it will design a pilot programme to support end-of-life medical, nursing and care services at home, as it seeks to close the gap between the many Koreans who want to die at home and the few who do.

At a policy debate chaired by First Vice Minister Hyun Soo-yup in Seoul, the ministry brought together researchers, hospice and home-nursing associations, and clinicians who provide end-of-life care at home to gather views on the plan, which it aims to confirm after a long-term care committee review and launch in the second half of next year, starting with long-term care recipients in regions where medical, nursing and care services are already in place.

Among long-term care recipients, 67.5 percent say they wish to die at home, but only 14.7 percent do.

Kim Se-jin, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs who led the study, presented the draft pilot programme.

"Dying where you have lived is not simply a matter of moving the place of death from a hospital to a home," Hyun said. "It means finishing life with dignity in a space that is familiar to me, together with the family I love."

He said the ministry would gather the various views raised at the debate and prepare institutions and policies carefully so that people can spend the end of their lives comfortably at home.

The ministry has made the plan part of its national policy agenda and, since March, has worked with the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs and others over roughly seven months to draw up concrete measures.

Separately, a survey of users of the government's integrated community care programme at its 100-day mark found that they named home-visit rehabilitation and end-of-life care as the services they most wanted added.