"Save Me," Note Flung From Iron Bars... Four Patients Die Consecutively

At a psychiatric hospital in Incheon where four hospitalized patients have died this year alone, it has been revealed that a patient last year threw a note out of the window reading "Save me" to plead for rescue.

According to the office of Representative Huh Jong-sik of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee, a hospitalized patient at Won Hospital in Michuhol-gu, Incheon, tossed a note asking for rescue out of a barred window last winter.

The hospital is a psychiatric medical institution with 108 patients admitted across 143 beds. All windows are blocked with iron bars, and outsiders can only enter and exit through a passageway beneath the building.

It was revealed that at this hospital, four hospitalized patients were found in cardiac or respiratory arrest between January and June of this year, and died either on the same day or three days later.

At the time, medical staff were not stationed in the wards, and patient observation was reportedly not properly conducted.

The hospital management allegedly instructed nursing assistants and caregivers to seclude and restrain patients without medical staff present from 10:00 PM every night until 7:00 AM the following morning, while also restricting the patients' freedom of communication.

It was also reported that a patient with autism spectrum disorder was secluded for 200 days in a locked room on the grounds that they stole another patient's coffee.

However, the administrative measures taken against this hospital by the competent Michuhol-gu Health Center from 2024 to this year amounted to only four correction orders.

In connection with this, a petition was filed with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, and the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency also received a complaint from the bereaved family of one of the deceased patients, conducting a seizure and search at Won Hospital the day before yesterday (October 6).

The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to conduct a joint on-site inspection of the hospital next week alongside Incheon City and the Michuhol-gu Health Center.

Representative Huh stated, "We must closely inspect the hospitalization conditions of psychiatric medical institutions nationwide to ensure that patients who have difficulty speaking up for themselves are not left in human rights blind spots."

Reported by Park Se-won | Video by Lee Eui-seon | Graphics by Lee Su-min | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.