[Anchor]

The number of psychiatric patients subject to emergency hospitalization due to the risk of harming themselves or others is surging. However, the number of public hospitals is woefully inadequate, leaving police officers to wander from hospital to hospital.

Morning Zoom-In, with reporter Kwon Min-kyu.

[Reporter]

A man holding a lighter in front of a gas station confronts dispatched police officers.

["Stay still! Calm down! Calm down!"]

This man, suffering from a mental illness, even bit a police officer's arm after a rampage.

[Officer Jung Geon / Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Mental Emergency Joint Response Team : "He kept saying, 'Someone is trying to kill me, they're coming after me.' He showed classic symptoms of bipolar disorder, and as we were subduing him, he bit my wrist..."]

Under South Korean law, the person who first discovers a psychiatric patient at risk of harming themselves or others can request emergency hospitalization with the consent of a doctor and a police officer.

In most cases, police officers who respond to reports become the initial discoverers and request the emergency hospitalization.

Since procedures for involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations by guardians or acquaintances were tightened in 2017, police requests for emergency hospitalization have surged nearly fourfold over the past five years.

[Officer Jung Sang-hoon / Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency Mental Emergency Response Team : "If there used to be about 3 to 4 cases a day, now it has increased to around 10 cases at most. Emergency medical technicians cannot subdue them (legally)."]

Emergency hospitalizations are mostly handled through public hospital beds, but there are fewer than 200 such beds nationwide, including regions like Daejeon and Gangwon, which have only two.

Because of this situation, in South Jeolla and Gwangju last August, a psychiatric patient who attempted suicide was admitted to a hospital in Busan only after 28 hours, and there was even a case where they wandered among 29 hospitals for 33 hours.

[Officer Jung Sang-hoon / Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency Mental Emergency Response Team : "We called dozens of places. We are trying our best, but since we are not a medical institution or anything like that..."]

In some countries like Australia, while they receive help from the police and fire services, separate specialized agencies handle emergency hospitalizations.

[Lee Kwang-hee / National Assembly Public Administration and Security Committee Member (Democratic Party) : "Shouldn't we establish a national transport team along with expanding mental health professionals? We actively propose this to the relevant ministries..."]

To reduce the so-called emergency hospitalization merry-go-round faced by police officers and to guarantee proper treatment and transport for psychiatric patients, it is time to consider improving the overall emergency hospitalization system.

(Video reporting: Joo Yong-jin, Video editing: Kim Jun-hee, Design: Yang Gi-tae, Data provided by the office of lawmaker Lee Kwang-hee)