• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.33-56
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• 2006

Primary care takers, especially older parents, who live with and care for an adult child with mental illness struggle with the dilemma of who will provide for their child's social and emotional needs and physical care requirements when they can no longer care so. Therefore, 'Permanency plan(financial, residential, legal plan)' is very important for social integration and normalization of mental illness adults. This study aims to introduce the mental health systems in New Zealand and to investigate the permanency plan strategies(benefit, supplements, and the laws) of the government and community support services of NGOs through the interviews with team leaders of representative NGO, Te Korowai Aroha. Permanency plan strategies of New Zealand Government and NGOs are as follows. 1) Financial plans for adults with mental illness include main benefit(invalid benefit), various allowances(family allowance and disability allowance), and wage subsidies for employment. 2) The Government provide accommodation supplement and re-establishment grant for residential plan. And NGOs have supported accommodation program to provide support and accommodation that are important for social integration. 3) Adult mental illness is provided the support of welfare guardian and property manager under the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act. According the results, this study concluded that social services for the mental illness which secure supported accommodation and benefits is strongly needed. At the same time, mental health delivery system is needed to make distinction between social services and clinical services.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.103-128
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• 2023

According to the current act of Decision-Marking in Life-Sustaining Medicine, the decision to withhold or discontinue life-sustaining treatment is primarily based on the wishes of a patient in the dying process. Decision-making regarding life-sustaining treatment for these patients is made by the patient, if he or she is conscious, directly expressing his/her intention for life-sustaining treatment in writing or verbally or by writing an advance medical directive and physician orders for life-sustaining treatment. It can be exercised. On the other hand, if the patient has not written an advance medical directive or physician orders for life-sustaining treatment, the patient's intention can be confirmed with a statement from the patient's family, or a decision to discontinue life-sustaining treatment can be made with the consent of all members of the patient's family. However, in the case of an unrelated patient who has no family or whose family is unknown, if an advance medical directive or physician orders for life-sustaining treatment are not written before hospitalization and a medical condition prevents the patient from expressing his or her opinion, the patient's will cannot be known and the patient cannot be informed. A situation arises where a decision must be made as to whether to continue or discontinue life-sustaining treatment. This study reviewed discussions and measures for unbefriended patients under the current law in order to suggest policy measures for deciding on life-sustaining treatment in the case of unbefriended patients. First, we looked at the application of the adult guardian system, but although an adult guardian can replace consent for medical treatment that infringes on the body, permission from the family court is required in cases where death may occur as a direct result of medical treatment. It cannot be said to be an appropriate solution for patients in the process of dying. Second, in accordance with Article 14 of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision Act, we looked at the deliberation of medical institution ethics committees on decisions to discontinue life-sustaining treatment for patients without family ties.Under the current law, the medical institution ethics committee cannot make decisions on discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment for unbefriended patients, so through revision, matters regarding decisions on discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment for unbefriended patients are reflected in Article 14 of the same Act or separate provisions for unbefriended patients are made. It is necessary to establish and amend new provisions. In addition, the medical institution ethics committee must make a decision on unbefriended patients, but if the medical institution cannot make such a decision, there is a need to revise the law so that the public ethics committee can make decisions, such as discontinuing life-sustaining treatment for unbefriended patients.