Gwacheon City Launches 'Sick Child Care Service' This Month...Minimizing Care Gap

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Yu Je-seong] Gwacheon City announced on the 9th that it is launching the 'Sick Child Care Service' this month to reduce care gaps caused by sudden illnesses and strengthen local care support.

The 'Sick Child Care Service' is a service in which professional childcare providers visit homes to provide hospital accompaniment and in-home care when children fall ill in situations where guardians have difficulty caring for them.

The city is implementing this service to ease the burden on families, as the existing 'Disease-Infected Child Support Service' imposed high usage costs on households. The service provides full coverage of out-of-pocket expenses from the city budget with no income requirements.

Eligible recipients are children 12 years old and under attending daycare centers, kindergartens, or elementary schools who have contracted statutory infectious diseases or epidemic diseases. To use the service, applicants must first register as childcare service users through the Bokjiro website or their local administrative welfare center. When using the service, applicants should apply by phone to the Gwacheon City Family Center and submit relevant documents.

The service can be used for a minimum of 2 hours per session and up to a maximum of 60 hours per year per child.

Mayor Shin Gyeyong said, "We are strengthening care support so that parents can feel assured and receive help when their children are sick," adding, "We will continue to expand care policies to make Gwacheon a great place to raise children."