Seoul's Nowon-gu is operating the country's first integrated sick-child care service — covering everything from hospital escorts to bedside care — helping dual-income and single-parent families bridge child care gaps when a child falls ill.
The Nowon Sick-Child Care Center, which the district piloted in 2019 as the first of its kind in the country before formally opening, provides integrated care on behalf of guardians when a child suddenly becomes ill, handling both hospital accompaniment and in-facility bedside care in a single service.
The service is available to children from age 4 through elementary school. Dedicated child care workers travel directly to where the child is, take over safely from the guardian, and accompany the child from the medical appointment through to the return home. The service covers general consultations and routine checkups as well as developmental therapy and psychological counseling. Hospital escort service operates on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
At the center, a resident nurse monitors each child's condition and provides nursing care, care programs and medication guidance. Bedside care service runs on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. The service itself is entirely free; users cover medical fees, prescription costs and meal expenses.
Since opening in 2019, the center has accumulated more than 4,600 registered members as of this month, with a cumulative usage count of 8,474 cases — 6,366 hospital escorts and 2,108 bedside care visits. Average user satisfaction over the past three years stood at 94.6 percent.
On the strength of those results, 23 local governments and related agencies across the country have reached out to benchmark the model, and Nowon-gu's sick-child care framework is gaining recognition as a leading model for public child care.
The Nowon Sick-Child Care Center has passed the first written screening in the child illness care category of the Ministry of Interior and Safety's "Government Innovation First & Best" outstanding case competition. An online public vote to determine the final selection is currently under way.
District Mayor Seo Jun-o visited the Nowon Sick-Child Care Center on Friday to review service operations, encourage frontline staff and hear about any difficulties they faced. He then visited the Ihyu Center, which provides after-school care for elementary students, and a children's dining facility, conducting a broader inspection of the district's child care network.
The district is working to close child care gaps by linking sick-child care with after-school care and meal support.
The Ihyu Center, which Nowon-gu established in 2018 as the first such network in the country, now operates 29 locations across the district. Some of those sites are combined facilities that pair after-school care with a children's dining program, providing balanced meals alongside supervision.
"The fact that the Sick-Child Care Center has been nominated as a government innovation outstanding case is the result of Nowon-gu proactively building a care system and continuously improving its services," District Mayor Seo said. "Going forward, we will build an even more comprehensive local care network so that children can receive the right care at the right moment — not only when they are sick, but also for after-school care and meals."
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