I cover a wide range of stories about Korean society — one of the most dynamic places in the world. To me, journalism means being on the ground, uncovering untold stories and amplifying marginalized voices, especially in an era when AI is reshaping the media landscape. That’s why I’m always here to listen. Tips and stories are welcome — feel free to reach out via email. Before becoming a journalist, I traveled through 24 countries over 702 days, served two years as a military police officer in the Republic of Korea Air Force and later studied filmmaking at the Korea National University of Arts.
Hope of palliative care at home falls short for dying Koreans
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By Park Ung
Strong demand for home deaths collides with Korea’s limited at-home services support
Only about 8 percent of hospice patients who wanted to spend their final days at home died in their own residences, underscoring the gap between their wishes and practical barriers to dying at home.
That gap reflects a surging demand for home deaths that Korea’s hospice system has struggled to meet, constrained by staffing shortages and by the burdensome procedures families must navigate when a death occurs outside a hospital.
Last week’s report by the National Assembly Research Service found that the number of new hospice patients has continued to rise each year and most of them prefer to receive care at home.
Hospice care provides palliative treatment for terminally ill patients, such as those in their final days with advanced cancer, to enhance their quality of life.
It is offered in three forms — inpatient, home-based and consultative, the last providing palliative support to patients in general wards or outpatient clinics through coordinated visits by hospice teams. Patients can receive more than one type of care simultaneously.
Nearly 20,000 new patients entered hospice care in 2021, rising to about 20,300 in 2022, about 22,400 in 2023 and more than 24,300 last year, underscoring the steady annual increase. More than half of these patients received inpatient hospice care.
Among them, roughly 88 percent of patients using home-based and consultative services chose home as their place of care, while 72.5 percent of those using both inpatient and home-based services did so.
Family satisfaction with home care was also high. In 2023, 74.4 percent of bereaved families said they were “very satisfied” with home-based hospice — a higher rate than inpatient care at 53.2 percent and consultative hospice at 49.3 percent.
However, the share of patients who both preferred receiving care at home and died there fell from 14 percent in 2021 to 8.3 percent in 2024, highlighting the persistent gap between home-care preferences and outcomes.
The report said home deaths remain rare because families face heavy procedural burdens at home, from confirming the death to arranging the funeral.
While hospitals can issue death certificates immediately and move quickly into funeral procedures, home deaths require a cause-of-death review, which involves a police investigation and confirmation by a medical examiner.
That process is further hampered by a shortage of personnel. The number of public health doctors, who handle most death examinations, fell from nearly 3,500 in 2020 to just over 2,500 in 2025.
With low reimbursement rates offering little incentive for hospitals to participate, only 39 institutions nationwide provide professionally staffed home-based hospice services, limiting accessibility.
The report recommended expanding government funding to strengthen home-hospice capacity, including covering rental costs for essential medical equipment. It also proposed a leave program to compensate families during the final one to two weeks of intensive home care.
“It is also important to foster a social atmosphere where patients, their families and physicians can openly discuss death and plan for the end of life,” it added.