It is the purpose of this study to provide the basic data to stimulate the social understanding of an abandoned child from the medical viewpoint and the viewpoint of administrative management.
The data are based on the medical dossier of 305 patients which were hospitalized in ´A´ hospital (of Seoul municipal hospital) between 1992 and 1996.
The method of analysis is SPSS statistical package and the following results can be obtained :
1. The abandoned children were frequently found in the Spring by season, in April by month, on Friday by day, and especially in the night and before an individual home and an medical institution in many cases.
2. The children found in an individual home were younger, handicapped smaller, and hospitalized for shorter period. As they were healthy relatively, parents might hope that they were accepted as foundling foster children.
Contrary to above case, the children found in an medical institution were worse, handicapped more, and hospitalized for longer period. Accordingly, parents might hope that they were protected in an public institution.
3. The 69.8% of abandoned children had caught a disease at that time and the 53.8% of them had been handicapped. The most serious disease and handicap were the heart-lung trouble and the cerebral palsy, respectively.
4. The only 60.8% of them were adopted and the most of them were healthy relatively. The 10.2% which have been dead had caught four diseases on the average
As the results of above, the followings can be proposed :
1) It is required that the system connected to administrative management, which can provide the abandoned children turned for the better with the family relations to voluntary servants, be developed.
2) It is required that the system of registration management and plan for support economy, which can support the handicapped birth as the congenital malformation in national aspect, be developed.
3) It is required that to protect abandoned children, the health educational program for childbirth-people be prepared in the unit of a public health center.
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