"We hope that our small help can give you a great hope"

An elderly man named Nam Cheon-woo (67) is now receiving treatment after surgery for his cancer at the National Cancer Center in Korea. The doctor says he still needs to stay in the hospital for treatment, but he keeps insisting on checking out. This worries his youngest daughter Nam Gi-soon (32), who is taking care of him at the bedside.

The reason he asks for check-out despite the doctor’s persuasion is that he is worried about medical bills. He lived alone in a single rented room with no heating, making a living from collecting waste paper, and in June he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. On September 8, he had an operation and barely escaped with his life, depending on various assist devices in an intensive care unit, for about ten days, and he is now on a general ward. As a public charge, he has a first-class medical certificate, which helps cut his medical bills significantly. However, he had a major operation and needs to stay in the hospital for a long time. So he cannot afford his medical expenses. He has three children by his wife who died decades ago, but they are all in financial difficulty and can’t even get a bank loan.

His youngest daughter Nam Gi-soon is not financially well-off, either. Her husband works abroad. With her pregnant body, she made every effort to care for her sick father and to manage the operating costs, but she had to use all the money she had saved for delivery and postpartum care and then she didn’t know what to do. She asked many community organizations for help, but they all refused her request. Then she heard from a government office that the New Life Welfare Foundation was providing medical support for children with heart disease. With a faint hope, she contacted the Foundation office and asked for help.

After hearing the story of the daughter who was worried about her father and took care of him although she was almost due, the New Life Welfare Foundation visited the ward of her father Nam Cheon-woo and delivered heartfelt donations from the Foundation members to him on October 27. Hearing their encouraging words, Nam Gi-soon expressed her thanks, “There was nowhere for me to turn for help, but you came so fast to help us. Thank you!” She added, “After delivery, I’ll work hard and help those who are worse off than me for the rest of my life.” With the hope that their small efforts would bring great hope in their neighbors’ lives, the members wished that her father would regain health and that she would have a safe delivery, saying words of encouragement to them.