By Alexander Ahn

Seoul Metropolitan Children’s Hospital is providing medication instructions on pharmaceutical packaging in six foreign languages alongside Korean to help multicultural families.

The hospital in Seochogu, southern Seoul, said Monday that it started the service on May 1 to address concerns about potential drug misuse among members of interracial families who cannot read Korean.

The six languages are Chinese, English, Japanese, Mongolian, Thai and Vietnamese, targeting the majority groups of foreign residents.

The directions include easy-to-understand information on storage, proper external application or usage, how to administer medicine to children and other related details.

Korean and the other languages are printed for individual patients to understand exactly how to take their medication, but also for friends and family who understand Hangeul to verify the instructions.

The children’s hospital plans to improve its health care system for multicultural families by having better communication with them.

The instructions will also be posted in all seven languages on the hospital’s homepage (childhosp.seoul.go.kr) for patients to check anytime, anywhere. The Korean Pharmaceutical Association plans to promote this system in other affiliated hospitals and pharmacies.