Gyeyang District Council holds forum on improving conditions for long-term care workers

Incheon's Gyeyang District Council said on the 30th that it had recently held a forum in its seminar room on improving working conditions and the status of long-term care workers.

The forum was organized after financial constraints and other factors had prevented specific support programs from moving forward despite the enactment of a related ordinance in 2023. The council held the discussion to identify effective improvements.

Gyeyang District Council Chair Moon Mi-hye moderated the forum. Twenty people attended, including council member Kim Yun-kyung, long-term care workers and representatives of labor unions, long-term care institutions, the National Health Insurance Service and Gyeyang District.

Participants discussed working-condition problems associated with contracts for fewer than 15 hours a week and difficulties operating institutions under the long-term care insurance reimbursement system. They also addressed policy support for improving the work environment and ways to apply it in practice.

Chair Moon stressed the need to pursue support programs, including a survey of long-term care workers' working conditions and educational programs, while taking financial circumstances into account.

Chair Moon Mi-hye said the treatment of long-term care workers was connected to the quality of care services and that issues directly affecting residents' lives should not be neglected even amid financial difficulties. She also called for tangible programs, even if small in scale.