South Korea - The Korea Times

Old hot water pipe burst kills 1, injures 25

Engineers inspect a ruptured heating pipe in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday. / YonhapBy Jung Hae-myoung An underground hot water pipe that ruptured at 8:41 p.m. near Baekseok Station, killing one and injuring 25 with a high pressure steam leak, likely burst because of its age the authorities said Wednesday. They say the 27-year-old pipe in Goyang, western Seoul, that provided heat for a nearby apartment complex, probably cracked and then gave way under pressure from the boiling water inside. “It seems a welded part of the pipe had been rusting for a long time and it exploded when it could not cope with the pressure anymore,” an official of Goyang local government said after checking the site. “Chances are the pipe broke because it was too old. It has been there more than 20 years,” said Lee Jin-sang, head of Korea District Heating Corp.'s Goyang office. “But we have to inspect the pipe to find the exact cause.”After looking into the authorities reactivated the heating system at 9 a.m. Wednesday, despite the incident leaving the area flooded.

Dec 5, 2018

Old hot water pipe burst kills 1, injures 25

Gov't to reduce burden for rare disease patients

A doctor checks a patient. Rare disease patients, including those with Eales' disease, will pay less for medical treatment. / YonhapBy Jung Hae-myoung Starting next year, more patients battling rare diseases will pay less for their medical expenses, as 100 disorders have been newly added to the government's subsidy list, according to the health ministry, Tuesday.Rare diseases refer to illnesses affecting fewer than 20,000 people worldwide or diseases for which an appropriate treatment or alternative medicine has yet to be developed.As of Tuesday, a total of 927 diseases are classified as rare.According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, patients with those rare diseases will only have to pay 10 percent of their medical bills and the government will cover the rest. The ministry estimates around 1,800 patients will benefit.The addition of 100 new rare diseases to the subsidy list was made after months of reviews and discussions with patients, families and experts.In addition, 68 “extremely” rare diseases that are suffered by fewer than 200 people were included in the li

Dec 4, 2018

Gov't to reduce burden for rare disease patients

Life expectancy of South Koreans hits 82.7 years

Life expectancy at birth averaged 82.7 years in 2017, three months longer than a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.South Korean babies born in 2017 are expected to live more than 82 years, government data showed Monday, as a growing number of people take care of their health by receiving regular medical checkups and treatment.Life expectancy at birth averaged 82.7 years in 2017, three months longer than a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.In 1970, the average life expectancy for South Koreans stood at 62.3 years.Baby boys and girls born in 2017 were expected to live 79.7 years and 85.7 years, respectively, with the male-female difference narrowing by one month to 6 years.South Korea's life expectancies for male and female babies are 1.7 years and 2.4 years longer than the average of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 36 developed, high-income market economies. (Yonhap)

Dec 3, 2018

Life expectancy of South Koreans hits 82.7 years

Buckle up: Police cracking down on seatbelt violations

A police officer checks whether a driver violated a new seatbelt rule on a road in southern Seoul, Sunday. YonhapBy Jung Min-hoPolice are clamping down on seatbelt violations throughout this month.As announced in September, police across the country have started an intense crackdown on drivers who violate the new seatbelt rule.On Sept. 28, an enforcement ordinance came into force to require all car passengers to wear seatbelts on all roads.A driver will be fined 30,000 won ($27) if any passenger does not wear a seatbelt. If a rule violator is 13 or younger, the fine will be 60,000 won. Passengers six or younger have to be in protective seating.

Dec 3, 2018By Jung Min-ho

Buckle up: Police cracking down on seatbelt violations

Korea to spend 8 trillion won on mental illness treatment by 2020

By Kim Hyun-binThe cost of treating mental illness here is expected to exceed 8 trillion won ($7.1 billion) by 2020, more than that for gastrointestinal problems, the most common form of illness among Koreans, according to “Koreans' mental disease burden,” a report by a research team from Korea University.The report stated that the cost for mental illness and behavioral disorders, and the disability-adjusted life year (DALY) of these, will keep growing, increasing by 22 percent for men and 35 percent for women by 2030. DALY is a measure of overall disease burden, expressed as the number of years lost due to bad health, disability or early death.The DALY of mental illness and behavioral disorders is already high, ranking seventh among the nation's 21 disease categories, followed by musculoskeletal disorders, diabetes, urinogenital problems, blood and endocrine diseases, other non-communicable diseases, cardiovascular and circulatory diseases, cancer, and chronic respiratory diseases. In 23 subdivisions of mental illness, depressive disorders topped the list followed by sch

Dec 2, 2018By Kim Hyun-bin

Korea to spend 8 trillion won on mental illness treatment by 2020

Korean adopted as baby searches for her biological parents

Photos of Lee Hyung-ja as a baby / Courtesy of Lee Hyung-JaBy Jung Min-hoOne of the first photos Lee's adopting parents took after she arrived at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport in early 1974.There are tears and heartbreaks in every adoption story. Nevertheless, some people manage successfully to build their lives in a new place with the love and support of a new family.Unfortunately, it was not the case for Lee Hyung-ja, who was adopted by a Swedish couple in 1974 when she was only a year old.“My whole life, I felt lost,” Lee, 46, whose Swedish name is Katarina Chi Lind, told The Korea Times. “I've felt different, not 'at home' in Sweden. Something was missing and I didn't know what it was. I searched and searched but never found what I was searching for.”Part of her struggle came from an emotionally distant relationship with her adopting parents, who wanted her to grow as a normal Swede.Lee found that missing piece of the puzzle in 2011 when she fell in love with a Korean man. It was her roots, she said. The man, who eventually became her husband, encouraged her

Nov 29, 2018By Jung Min-ho

Korean adopted as baby searches for her biological parents

Korean parents let YouTube babysit their children

A kid YouTuber plays with slime while his father films him. / Korea Times fileBy Lee Suh-yoonFor Kim, an office worker in her late 30s, the smartphone used to be a useful childcare device.“When my daughter was still three or four-years-old, she didn't leave me alone for a single moment,” Kim said. “I found myself handing her my smartphone so she could occupy herself with a Pororo cartoon or something. I felt some guilt for letting the child get immersed in the mobile world, but it was the only way I could finish some housework, or when we were at a cafe, chat with my friends.” Kim is not alone in this dilemma. According to a recent survey by Yonsei University's Barun ICT Research Center, six out of 10 Korean parents with children between the age of one and six give their smartphones to their children to either get other work done or pacify them. Only 7 percent responded it was for educational purposes.The same survey showed 80 percent of the material viewed by young Korean children through a parent's smartphone was through video platforms like YouTube. The mos

Nov 28, 2018

Korean parents let YouTube babysit their children

Korean childbirths continue to decline in September

The number of newborns in South Korea fell again in September, government data showed Wednesday, in the latest sign of the chronically low birthrate that has plagued Asia's fourth-largest economy for more than a decade.About 26,100 babies were born in September, down 4,000, or 13.3 percent, from 30,100 tallied a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.The total marks the lowest number of newborns reported for any September since the agency started compiling related data on a monthly basis, the statistics office said.In the first nine months of the year, the number of newborns fell 9.2 percent on-year to 252,000, official numbers showed.During the third quarter of the year, the number of babies born in the country fell to 80,400, down 9,200, or 10.3 percent from a year earlier, marking the lowest three-month tally since 1981.The number of childbirths per month has decreased on-year every month since December 2015.Last year, the number of newborns dropped to a record low despite concerted efforts to tackle the problem.The number of babies born in all of 2017 re

Nov 28, 2018

Korean childbirths continue to decline in September

Rule on ending life-sustaining treatment to be more practical

Medical staffers at Yonsei Severance Hospital in Seoul watch a 77-year-old woman, who had been vegetative, before ceasing life-sustaining treatment following a Supreme Court ruling to do so, in this 2009 photo. Since the case, the nation introduced a law on halting life-sustaining treatment for terminally ill patients, and an eased rule will take effect next March.  Korea Times fileBy Jung Hae-myoung The regulation on ending life-sustaining treatment for terminally ill patients will be eased next year to become more practical, narrowing the scope of “family consent” required for approval of the cessation. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare on Sunday, the National Assembly recently passed the revision to the law to allow patients to end medical treatment after getting consent from their spouse, parents and children only. The new regulation will take effect on March 28 next year.Under the current law, the life-sustaining treatment of an unconscious patient can be halted when all of the patient's lineal family members consent to it, including spouse, parent

Nov 25, 2018

Rule on ending life-sustaining treatment to be more practical

Gov't lacks budget to prevent TB outbreak

By Kim Hyun-binThe government's lack of policies and budget to contain highly infectious tuberculosis is stirring fears of a possible outbreak. In the wee hours of Nov. 19, a tuberculosis (TB) patient in his 40s left a TB specialized hospital where he was in quarantine and disappeared. The patient only identified by his surname Kim was diagnosed with TB and had been getting treatment at the Seobuk Hospital in Seoul for three months.Kim took advantage of the lax nighttime security at the hospital and changed into ordinary clothes and departed, according to police.The Eunpyeong Police Station in Seoul has been trying to trace Kim's whereabouts but has so far been unsuccessful.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control notes, “The bacteria that cause TB are spread through the air from person to person when a person with the disease coughs, speaks or sings. People nearby may breathe in these bacteria and become infected. People with TB usually have symptoms and may spread the TB bacteria to others.”TB patients are treated separately from other patients due to the highly infectious

Nov 25, 2018By Kim Hyun-bin

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