Health ministry designates South Chungcheong mental emergency medical center

South Korea's health ministry said Tuesday it had designated Dankook University Hospital in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, as a regional mental emergency medical center, widening access to round-the-clock combined physical and psychiatric emergency care.

The addition raises the network to 14 centers in 11 cities and provinces, from 13 centers across 10 cities and provinces through 2025. South Chungcheong previously had no regional mental emergency medical center. The ministry selected the hospital after a June 19-July 6 call for applications.

The program, introduced in 2022, serves psychiatric emergency patients whose lives are at risk after self-harm or suicide attempts, as well as those requiring urgent physical treatment. The ministry said the designation should allow patients in South Chungcheong to receive physical emergency treatment, psychiatric assessment and treatment at one hospital, reducing the need to visit multiple medical institutions or face treatment delays. At dedicated beds in emergency rooms, emergency-medicine and psychiatric teams work jointly to provide medical and surgical treatment alongside psychiatric evaluation and care.

Designated emergency facilities receive funding to improve short-term observation areas and cover personnel costs for doctors, nurses and other medical staff. A management fee for treatment in a short-term observation area can be charged once a day, up to three times over 72 hours, along with an initial psychiatric-emergency assessment fee.

The health ministry plans to expand the network to 17 centers by 2030. "Regional mental emergency medical centers are intended to prevent patients who need both physical emergency care and psychiatric treatment from missing the right time for treatment," Lee Seon-young, director general for mental health policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said.