Administrative hospitalization without a referral from the local government is a human rights violation
- Recommendation of job training to the head of the mental health institution and guidance and supervision recommendation to the head of the local government. -
□ The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (hereinafter referred to as the “NHRCK”) requested the head of ○○○ Hospital (hereinafter referred to as the “respondent”), a mental health institution, to provide job training on the hospitalization process in accordance with the 「Act on the Improvement of Mental Health and the Support for Welfare Services for Mental Patients」(hereinafter referred to as the “Act on Mental Health Welfare”) to its medical staff on December 10, 2024. The NHRCK recommended that the head of the local government thoroughly supervise and guide the respondent hospital to prevent administrative hospitalization of mentally ill patients without the referral of the head of the local government.
□ On January 22, 2024, the complainant filed a complaint with the NHRCK, claiming that he was unfairly hospitalized by the respondent and the manager of the apartment where he lived.
□ In response, the respondent argued that the complainant had shown inappropriate speech, delusions, and violent behavior at the time of admission, and that he was admitted to the hospital after a face-to-face consultation with a psychiatrist who diagnosed that he needed psychiatric treatment due to the risk of self-harm and harm to others.
□ The NHRCK's Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Committee Chair: Standing Commissionner Nam Kyusun) determined that the need for a recommendation was justified for the following reasons, even if the complaint in this case was dismissed due to the complainant's withdrawal, given the seriousness of the matter.
According to the Act on Mental Health Welfare, the entities that can make an administrative hospitalization (hospitalization for diagnosis) of a person suspected of having a mental illness are mayor of Special Self-Governing Cities, governor of Special Self-Governing Provinces, mayors, county governors, and head of a district office, and the designated mental health care institution can initiate an administrative hospitalization after a mayor or other entitled entity requests an hospitalization for diagnosis.
However, according to the results of the investigation in this case, the time when the ○○ City Health Center received the official request for diagnosis and protection from the hospital to which the complainant was hospitalized was around 15:57, and the mayor of ○○ sent the official request for administrative hospitalization of the complainant to the hospital around 17:33, but the time when the hospitalization of the complainant actually began was around 14:09. The time when the complainant's medical records began to be entered in the medical record is 14:30. Considering these circumstances, there was no request from ○○ City for hospitalization at the time the complainant was admitted, so the administrative hospitalization did not follow the proper procedure.
□ In order to prevent the recurrence of human rights violations similar to this case in the future, the NHRCK has recommended the measures aforementioned above, to the head of the hospital and the head of the local government to prevent the administrative hospitalization of mentally ill persons to mental health institutions without a referral in accordance with Article 19, Paragraph 1 and Article 25, Paragraph 1 of the National Human Rights Commission Act.
