Korea: The Mystery of Life

Cielo Lee, Young-Hee is a visiting nurse for a hospital in Seoul (Korea). The percentage of suicides among people over 80 is the highest in the world. “After reading some statistics, I began working in prevention, since 80% of my patients are over 80.” Following one negative experience with a deeply depressed patient, Cielo Lee decided to organise a course on the prevention of suicide, for 100 geriatric workers and 30 parish volunteers. “While visiting 40 patients each week with one of my colleagues we evaluated their mood and state of mind according to national health standards. Based on those results we decided to make twice-a-week visits to the 10 patients who were most at risk.”

The Gatekeeper Project is a public service promoted by the government in Seoul. It operates in all the quarters of the capital for the prevention of suicides, and in close collaboration with local health services. “In this project,” Cielo Lee explains, “we also train the elderly as gate-keepers. These same-age men and women accompany the nurses visiting patients and offer helpful health advice.”

Because of my desire to protect the life of even just one person, at work I shared my intentions with a religious sister, the head nurse. Then sixty of my nurse colleagues decided to attend the suicide prevention training.”

One patient has suffered with a serious illness for 10 years: “When I went to his home,” she says “before going in I would pray, and I tried to listen deeply to everything he had to say. For a while now, this patient has returned to prayer and is becoming more stable.”

A friend was suffering from insomnia after the death of her eldest son. She was only able to sleep with the help of sedatives. But after attending the course she has begun to care for an elderly neighbour with no family. Now she is able to sleep without the help of medication, and she is grateful that she can do something for other people.

“One day the phone rang,” Cielo Lee recounts. “It was the mental health centre that I work with. The person from the centre told me that the Mayor of Seoul would be giving a prize to one person from each quarter and that I had been unanimously chosen! The next day I received a additional prize from the director of the hospital.”

Members from the Focolare Movement in Seoul who attended the course wrote that it was “a precious opportunity for deepening our awareness of the mystery of life, and for going towards the existential peripheries.”