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November 30, 2007
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“I leave it open so that people will know when I die suddenly at home,” he explains. Kang suffers from nerve disorders, arthritis and cataracts. It is difficult for him to walk around, even in his small room. His two daughters, who are married, call him just twice a year, on the lunar New Year and during the Chuseok holiday. His worst fear is that he will die forgotten and alone. “I imagine myself dead,” he lamented, “lying for days without anyone discovering me, just like those poor people on the news.” Unfortunately, Kang is not being paranoid. Welfare experts say that the number of impoverished senior citizens living alone is climbing rapidly ― and so is concern for their well-being. “We see at least two adults dying every year with no family to watch over them,” said Jung Jin-suk from the Peace Welfare Foundation, a group that looks after about 100 senior citizens living alone. “They are usually very old and have no family. Their funeral rites are usually simplified by necessity. It’s all very sad.” According to the foundation, a 66-year-old woman living in alone in a rundown part of Mapo was found dead last month in her home two days after she died. The cause of death was starvation. She had no contact with relatives and had been refusing to get help from the district office. Also in October, a 67-year-old man was found dead at home. Alerted by a bad smell, the landlord called police, who found a body that had been decaying for at least a month. The man had been suffering from tuberculosis. In a survey conducted by the Ministry of Welfare of about 140,000 adults 65 and over who were living alone, they found that 92 percent were suffering from at least one chronic disease. Thirty-two percent were in desperate need of medical help. Among them, over 40 percent were living far from neighbors, and seven percent had no family contact at all. Even those with loved ones were usually alone, with 24 percent saying they spoke to relatives less than once a month. Fifty-four percent said they had no friends and 85 percent said they did not know how to get help from the government. There are an estimated 880,000 elderly living alone currently, but the government expects the number to rise to 1 million by 2010. By Lee Chul-jae, Kang Ki-heon JoongAng Ilbo [mina@joongang.co.kr] |
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