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Coronavirus Outbreaks Inside Two S. Korean Medical Facilities

Jason Strother

   SEOUL - Coronavirus outbreaks inside two South Korean medical
   facilities reveal the vulnerability of people with disabilities to the
   disease that appears poised to become a global pandemic.

   On Tuesday, local media reported that 11 of 30 residents of a private,
   care center for the disabled in North Gyeongsang province have
   contracted COVID-19. An additional 10 employees, half of whom also have
   a disability, also tested positive for the pneumonia-like virus.

   According to the Grain of Wheat Love House, it's remaining residents
   and staff have been quarantined inside the facility, which has
   undergone disinfection."

   We apologize for the public concern caused by this unexpected
   situation," said a notice posted on the charity's website. This came
   just days after a surge of infections at the Daenam Hospital in
   Cheongdo county, a region in the same province that Seoul has
   designated as a "special care zone." At least 100 patients in the
   complex's psychiatric ward were sickened from the coronavirus.

   The Korea Center for Disease Control (KCDC) said by midday on Wednesday
   that more than1000 people have been infected with COVID-19 and that
   seven of the country's 12 -deaths attributed to the illness originated
   at the Daenam Hospital.

   Kim Hyun-chung, a psychiatrist who formerly counseled patients for
   nine-years at a general hospital in Seoul, says conditions inside such
   treatment centers are fertile ground for the transmission of diseases.

   "If a patient has a chronic mental health condition, like depression or
   schizophrenia, social norms can deteriorate and they might not take
   care of their hygiene," she says, adding that it's the responsibility
   of the typically over-worked medical staff to ensure that patients
   shower and brush their teeth, for instance.

   Kim says rooms in South Korean hospitals often sleep up to six patients
   as well as their caregivers- increasing the potential spread of a virus
   among people who are already sick. And psychiatric facilities don't
   always receive the same resources given to other hospital departments,
   she explains.

   "Mental health wards don't make a lot of money for the hospital," she
   says.

   The South Korean healthcare system has come under criticism for its
   reliance on institutionalizing people with a mental health disability.

   "Korea needs to reduce the level of dependence on long-term treatments
   in hospitals," according to a study published last year in the
   International Journal of Mental Health Systems. "Many patients become
   long-term residents at these facilities and lose their will to return
   to their own communities."

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