On December 17, 2008, the Commission held a “Discussion Forum on the Conclusions of the Inquiry on Human Rights Conditions of the Mentally Disabled.” The forum was organized to gain an understanding of the human rights situation of the mentally disabled and to look for ways of improvement based on the findings of the ‘Inquiry on Human Rights Conditions of the Mentally Disabled’ that started in June 2008. The outcome of the forum will be reflected in the National Report on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights of the Mentally Disabled that is going to be published.
According to the Inquiry:
- Only 17.5% of the patients that were hospitalized or admitted into mental hospitals, treatment facilities, or rehabilitation centers were voluntarily admitted, whereas 82.5% of them were forcefully admitted by guardians, provincial governors, or the police.
- Only 50% of the patients hospitalized at mental health institutions were informed of the admission and discharge process from their family members or hospital officials.
- The duration of hospitalization at mental health institutions averaged 668 days, which is 10 times, 25 times, and 50 times higher than that of the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy, respectively.
- Twenty-five percent of the hospitalized patients were restrained by the hospital staff without any explanation and one out of four of those patients experienced verbal, physical, and sexual violence during the course of the restraint.
- Only 3.2% of the patients were instructed to be discharged through the inspection of the Mental and Public Health Review Board and even if the patients were discharged, 28% of them were immediately hospitalized again.
As such, the mentally disabled face difficulties in realizing their rights due to involuntary and long-term hospitalization, wrongful seclusion and restraint, and difficult discharge processes. In order to remove these difficulties, the introduction of a mental health system that complies with human rights standards is urgently needed.
As the number of petitions requesting relief from mental health institutions continued to rise, the Commission decided to investigate the human rights conditions of the patients and conditions of the facilities. As such, since June 2008, the Commission launched investigations and inquiries in 6 different areas, namely, conditions of mental health institutions and patients, discrimination and prejudice against the mentally disabled, organizational factors causing and extending long-term hospitalizations, living conditions of stay-at-home mental patients and their families, mental health conditions of particularly vulnerable groups, and case studies of overseas practices and construction of an advanced model. The results of the above mentioned research and inquiries will be reflected in the National Report on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights of the Mentally Disabled, expected to be released in June 2009.
