The Ministry of Health and Welfare added 12 hospitals for intensive treatment of acute mental illness. With this, intensive treatment hospitals increased to 38 nationwide, with 789 beds.
The ministry said on the 1st that it designated 12 hospitals for the first-term, second-round intensive treatment of acute mental illness. The newly designated hospitals include two tertiary general hospitals, three general hospitals, and seven psychiatric hospitals, operating a total of 283 beds.
An intensive treatment hospital is a medical institution that provides intensive care for patients with acute mental illness who pose a risk to themselves or others or require emergency admission. It must meet strengthened staffing and facility standards compared with regular psychiatric wards, and 26 hospitals, including Seoul National University Hospital, were first designated in Dec. last year.
With this designation, the first- and second-round designated hospitals increased to 38 in total. There are 789 beds in all, of which 130 are dedicated to psychiatric emergency patients. Tertiary general hospitals and general hospitals must operate at least 10% of intensive treatment beds, and psychiatric hospitals at least 20%, as emergency-only beds.
The ministry expects that, with more general hospital-level institutions joining, collaboration between psychiatry and other departments will expand.
Intensive treatment hospitals handle not only inpatient care but also case management, including post-discharge treatment planning and home and phone counseling. The government will expand intensive treatment hospitals in stages, considering demand for acute mental illness treatment and regional conditions, and aims to secure 2,000 intensive treatment beds by 2030.
The ministry plans to proceed with the first-term, third-round designation process in the second half of this year for regional mental medical institutions and institutions not selected in this call.