Police have launched a compulsory investigation into a psychiatric hospital in Incheon where four patients died in succession over six months. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea also confirmed signs of human rights violations, including improper seclusion and physical restraint of patients and the absence of medical staff, and referred the hospital director to the Serious Crime Investigation Agency on charges including professional negligence resulting in death.
According to police on the 6th, the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency's major crime investigation unit deployed five investigators to Won Hospital in Incheon's Michuhol District and conducted a search and seizure beginning at 10 a.m. that day. Police are reported to have secured evidence including medical records to determine the circumstances of the patient deaths.
Police had earlier received a criminal complaint from the family of one patient who died at the hospital and began investigating the hospital director and others. A police official said the agency could not disclose the specific targets of the search or the contents of the material seized.
Police said, however, that the search was not coordinated in advance with the Serious Crime Investigation Agency.
The commission's investigation confirmed that four patients at the hospital were found in cardiac or respiratory arrest between January and June this year and died within three days of being discovered.
A dementia patient identified as A, who had been secluded in a protection room, was found in cardiac arrest in the early morning hours in January when no medical staff were present at the hospital, and died of a traumatic subdural hemorrhage. A patient with an intellectual disability identified as B had been kept alone for 325 days in a room fitted with a lock because the patient took food from other patients, and was found in cardiac arrest in February before dying of asphyxiation in the transport vehicle.
A patient with schizophrenia identified as C was also found in cardiac arrest during nighttime hours in March when no medical staff were present, and died of gastrointestinal bleeding. A patient with alcohol dependence syndrome identified as D suffered respiratory distress while eating instant noodles in June and was transported to a hospital but died of multiple organ failure.
The commission also confirmed circumstances in which patients were improperly secluded and restrained. A patient with autism identified as E was secluded for 200 days in a room fitted with a lock because the patient took coffee from another patient, but no records remained of any instruction from a psychiatrist or of the grounds for the seclusion and restraint.
The investigation also found that nursing assistants and care workers secluded and restrained patients between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. each day, when no medical staff were present. The commission judged this to constitute unlicensed medical practice. Six patients who had difficulty communicating were processed as voluntary or consent admissions, and five other patients processed the same way told investigators they had never consented to being admitted.
Following its ex officio investigation into human rights violations including unlawful seclusion and patient deaths at psychiatric institutions, the commission said it had referred the director of the hospital under investigation on charges including professional negligence resulting in death, unlawful confinement and directing unlicensed medical practice, and referred a nursing assistant and a care worker at the same hospital on charges of violating seclusion and restraint procedures. It recommended that the head of the Michuhol District public health center impose necessary administrative measures such as a suspension of hospital operations, and that the minister of health and welfare take steps to improve improper seclusion and restraint practices at psychiatric institutions.
