• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.99-137
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• 2018

Under the Korean law, there are two routes of involuntary civil commitment of the mentally-ill: involuntary commitment process under the Mental Health Act (MHA) and the guardian's commitment backed up by family court approval under article 947-2 (2) of the Civil Code. Despite of the recent fundamental revision of MHA in 2016, the Korean involuntary commitment law has still serious flaws, especially the lack of due process like prior notice, hearing, and independent guardian ad litem for the mentally-ill, which has been pointed out also by the Korean Constitutional Court. Thus, a re-revision is inevitable, and this time, we should proceed to rebuild the underlying structure of involuntary commitment. In this regard, it is crucial to eliminate the old-fashioned and unjustifiable burden as well as power of the so-called responsible person to protect the mentally-ill and to readjust the causes and standings to petition of the various types of involuntary commitment process. Also it is necessary to repeal involuntary commitment by guardian under the Civil Code, article 947-2 (2), which can no longer harmonize with modern involuntary commitment system.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.257-267
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• 2016

The research subject is 8 mothers who put their physical/mentally impaired children in a group home, as the research method, this study conducted an in-depth interview survey. The participants of this study collected data from the in-depth interview on 8 mothers who put their disabled children to the group home. In the result of open coding, total 34 concepts, 28 subcategories and 13 categories were derived. The core category in the selective coding was 'establishing restorative relationship through entering a group home after encountering the limit of nurture.' Practical Strategies include the following; first, it's necessary to provide psychology counselling consequent on a mother's nurturing phase, and this study proposes a program for a father having a child with disability; in addition, there is the necessity of having to arrange the differentiated facility for physically/mentally impaired people, which meets the needs of the relevant people. At a level of policy, this study suggested the necessity of having to take into account the minimization of poverty problem facing a family having a disable child through the caring card, necessity of the use of good-natured card, and medical-social-welfare-based intervention, expansion of facility-touring class installation, and use of adult guardianship system, and differential payment of disabled child nurturing allowance consequent on income quantile, etc.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.43-82
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• 2019

In Korea surrogate medical decision makings happen without legal grounds. The purpose of this article is to research the issues in preparing policies for decision-making on behalf of unrepresented patients. As aspects of comparative law, there are two approaches. One of them is to regulate default surrogate list. If no agent or guardian has been appointed, some legislatures provide that members of patient's family who is reasonably available, in descending order of priority of not, may act as surrogate: (1) the spouse, unless legally separated; (2) an adult child; (3) a parent; or (4) an adult brother or sister. If none of them is eligible to act as surrogate, some legislatures allow close friends to make health-care decisions for adult individuals who lack capacity. On the other hand there are other legislatures which provide no surrogate decision maker list but oblige the responsible authority to determine with advice of family members or friends of the patient. In the end the first approach can not guarantee that the surrogate decision maker like family members or friends will determine in the best interest of the patient.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.29-52
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• 2004

Social welfare has transformed from a provider-centered welfare into a user-centered welfare. This trend have to increase the right to welfare and convenience for users. If the goal of social welfare guaranteed the respecting man's life and dignity, we had not regarded service users as the weak in the welfare system. The reinforcement of service users as the reconfirmation of welfare user's identity, mistreatment and violation of another's rights, self-determination must have the advocacy system. The advocacy for social welfare is the activity for benefit of individual, group, and community, and, protection, guarantee and maintenance of client's right. However, the client is hard to realization of right. therefore We have to support the activity for advocacy. The advocacy take aim the basic need of life and need the system for life support and safeguard client's rights. The mission of the advocacy for welfare service user is to advance the dignity, equality, self-determination, and expressed choices of individuals. We promote, expand, protect and seek to ensure the human and legal rights of individuals through the provision of information and advocacy. The advocacy system will carry out this mission in partnership with welfare service users. The goals for the advocacy system are organized into the following focus areas, which are not listed in order of priority: the majority guardian system and the support activity for service users, a predicament solution activity, service assessment, informed concent system.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.8-18
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• 2019

Purpose: This study was conducted to better understand the illness experiences and palliative care needs in community-dwelling persons with cardiometabolic diseases. Methods: This qualitative descriptive study was conducted with 11 patients (and three family members) among 28 patients contacted. Interviews were led by the principal investigator in her office or at participants' home depending on their preference. All interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed by a research assistant. The interviews were analyzed by two independent researchers using a conventional method. Results: Participants' ages ranged from 42 to 82 years (nine men and two women). Three themes were identified: (1) same disease, but different illness experiences; (2) I am in charge of my disease(s); (3) preparation for disease progression. Participants were informed of the name of their disease when they were diagnosed, but not provided with explanation of the diagnosis or meant or how to do self-care to delay the disease progression, which increased the feelings of uncertainty, hopelessness and anxiety. Taking medication was considered to be the primary treatment option and self-care a supplemental one. Advanced care plans were considered when they felt the progression of their disease(s) while refraining from sharing it with their family or health care professionals to save their concerns. All participants were willing to withhold life-sustaining treatment without making any preparation in writing. Conclusion: Education on self-care and advanced care planning should be provided to community-dwelling persons with cardiometabolic diseases. A patient-centered education program needs to be developed for this population.