IV drips and students

The level of education is insane in South Korea. I didn’t realize this until yesterday. I just thought - pfft, these kids just study like everyone else. Sure they have to go to after school classes but they are only in school for 4 to 5 hours a day so it isn’t that bad. Yesterday, I was witness to the insanity that is education.
Picture it.
I’m about to start teaching my After School Gifted class. I teach two gifted classes on Thursday - one for the younger kids and one for the older kids. Today we were learning about the life cycle of a frog (metamorphosis) and creating little froggies. I start talking about frogs with the students when, out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of someone at the door. I glance at the door - thinking that it’s just someone walking by - and am stunned into silence. There is a parent dropping off his son. This isn’t the part that had me stunned, obviously. The son stumbled into my classroom, slowly and weakly making his way to his seat. But Brooke - why was he walking “slowly and weakly” - what’s the big deal here? The son, my student, was dressed in hospital pajamas with a mask over his face. Oh but that’s not the worse part. The son had a needle in his hand that was connected to the IV drip he was rolling along with him.
I was very careful with this kid for the remainder of the class period. I asked if he was okay several times - he worked slowly and was barely lucid for the 40 minutes he was there. It was insane.
I discussed this with my Korean teacher today to say “Wtf? Is this common?” and she explained the situation to me. Apparently, the kid has a lung cold (pneumonia or bronchitis or something and I’m praying here that it isn’t the catagious ‘something’) and has been in the hospital for weeks now. He’s missed several classes inside school and has missed the last two gifted classes after school. Apparently, these gifted classes are graded and should the student miss a certain amount of them - they fail. So the dad dragged his kid from the hospital, stuck him in a 40 minute class, and drove him straight back to the hospital so that the student would get the piece of paper saying “I passed English Gifted Class”. 
Thing is, the student did the work and didn't complain. The kids are eager to learn - they want to be the best. They study for hours, stay up late, and are constantly in some type of education program all in hopes of getting the best test scores and going to the best schools. I admire their devotion to education.