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[Captured Article]Is Korea’s Military Ignoring Recruits’ Health?

Despite warning signs during his national service, a young man’s stomach cancer goes undiagnosed

A 28-year-old South Korean, whose fight with stomach cancer prompted an unprecedented wave of sympathy and online fundraising, has died.

Roh Chung Guk, a former taekwondo major at Yongin University, who served full-term mandatory military service until June 24, 2005, died of stomach cancer in the early hours of Oct. 27.

Roh Chung Guk

The poignancy of Roh’s story — the rapid progression from chronic ulcer to stomach cancer in just a few months — has sparked a lot of finger pointing between the military and his family about his death. Could it have been detected earlier, and who is responsible for any lapse?

His father has said that the family will not hold a funeral until the underlying reasons for his son’s death are settled with the Defense Ministry.

Yet at the same time, Roh’s story has prompted yet another of a rare online fundraising in South Korea, one of the world’s most wired country and where mililitary service is mandatory for healthy young males.

Since his story appeared on OhmyNews on Monday, readers have raised a total collection of 9.3 million won (US$9,000) for the Roh family. Donations varied from smaller amounts of several thousand won to 30,000 won. Five million won has been delivered to the family thus far.

One online reader, who uses the ID “catseye” wrote: “The military might regard Roh’s case as an individual one, but for a large majority of us Koreans it’s like a story about a brother. I don’t know how the military could have let its service member develop cancer. It’s just too unfair to dismiss it as a lot of one unfortunate individual.”

The news of his death is prompting a flood of online goodbyes from readers on major online portals as well as on OhmyNews.

In April 2005, Roh was diagnosed with a chronic ulcer at a South Korean military hospital in Gwangju. He was a soldier serving at the Army’s ammunition headquarters, with only two months left before returning home.

Back as a civilian, he went for a checkup at a private hospital and on July 7, the hospital said he was suffering from late-stage cancer of the stomach. Last week, his father, Roh Chun Seok, 62, was told by the doctor “prepare for your son’s funeral.”

Prior to his treatment at the Army’s Gwangju hospital, in March, he had knocked on the doors of his unit’s military doctor. Roh was turned away from an endoscopy procedure, because he had come on a full stomach, military officials have said.

Roh’s parents, whose father makes his living on daily labor, has petitioned the South Korean Defense Ministry, and other related military agencies. “My son developed cancer while serving in the Army, and did not receive proper medical treatment, therefore, the military officials should be held responsible.

But the Army has cautiously rebuffed any accountability. One official with the Army headquarters, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, has told OhmyNews that while Roh’s case was regrettable, “It’s important to determine whether Roh’s cancer developed from stress of military service, or whether because of his genes.”

“If it’s the latter, the military cannot be held responsible,” the official said.

Mandatory military service for healthy, young South Korean males has been in the spotlight lately. Earlier this year, a young soldier, stressed from serving on the frontline unit along South Korea’s demilitarized zone facing North Korea, killed eight of his fellow soldiers in a shooting rampage.

Many parents are still petitioning to find out the truth of “mysterious” deaths of their sons who have died while in the mandatory military service.

Web sites of the presidential Blue House and the Ministry of Defense have been bombarded with letters appealing for help for Roh and his family, as well as those condemning what they viewed as nonchalance on the part of the military.

2005-10-27 15:53
?2005 OhmyNews

[Captured Article]

25% of North Korean Defectors Suffer PTSD
With more women escaping than ever before, mental and gynecological care is critical

Pulling out a tooth must have been scary for an elderly defector at Hanawon, a government-run resettlement center in Seoul. He quickly gets up and says he will come back, as soon as the dentist suggests the prognosis of an extraction. ?2005 Jang Y.S.

Between 20 to 30 out of 100 North Korean defectors require mental health assessments, and some women defectors are in need of gynecological treatment, a volunteer nurse at Hanawon said in an interview with OhmyNews.

Jeon Jeong Hee, a 43-year-old nurse based in Seoul, volunteers at Hana clinic, a hospital affiliated with Hanawon, a South Korean government-run settlement center for North Korean defectors. South Korean government mandates that all North Korean defectors go through the three-month adjustment training at Hanawon, which is largely closed to the media. But on Oct. 19, Hanawon was opened to the several members of the press.

Jeon Jeong Hee ?2005 Jang Y.S.

Jeon works with at least 80 patients a day: Hanawon guests frequently seek medial treatment, she said. Settlers complain of illnesses varying from headaches to bad teeth and indigestion.

Many times, the physical symptoms stem deep within, coming from the mind and heart. About 60 percent of defectors speak of psychological difficulties such as depression, panic attack, anxiety disorder and hysteria.

“They tend to reveal these emotional conflicts through physical symptoms,” she said. “Some people I talk to have hard time controlling their emotions when they talk about their past ordeals. They repeat a pattern of reliving their ordeals even amid a new-found safety in the South.”

“Also gynecological treatment is needed as more and more women their 20s and 30s, are defecting,” Jeon said, adding that 70 percent of the new settlers that defect via a third country are women.

Multiple Hanawon officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, detected signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Women are more susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder because in their long course of defection, they have been subject to prostitution or witnessed indescribable tragedies such as murder of their children, right in front of their eyes,” the official said.

In a change from initial defection following North Korea’s 1995 famine, where mainly men fled the North, more women and family-unit defectors are arriving in the South. Part of the reason is that husbands who have settled first in the South are bringing in their wives and family members.

Hanawon offers treatment in internal, Oriental and dental medicine.

The internal medicine department has ultrasound and endoscope equipment. The dental department last year provided dental prosthesis including dentures for 98 recent North Korean defectors, making use of a government-subsidy worth 60 million won.

Jeon is one of the three South Korean recipients who will receive the Nightingale Award from the International Red Cross on Oct. 27.

Jeon believes what is more crucial for the North Korean defectors is after leaving Hanawon to treat PTSD, that treatment continue at the local level. While at Hanawon, they at least have access to decent medical services.

“It’s hard for people who have lived in peaceful times to understand the hardships of these people who traveled with no identity or nationality,” Jeon said.

Kim Won Ho, an official with Hanawon, said that the facility is providing individual mental health programs to deal with post-arrival anxieties for its inmates.

“We are currently talking with the Ministry of Health and Welfare about having a resident psychiatrist at Hanawon,” Kim said.

2005-10-25 17:37
?2005 OhmyNews