Health ministry issues psychiatric ward forms in seven languages

South Korea's health ministry said Tuesday that the National Center for Mental Health has released translations of 16 psychiatric admission and discharge forms in seven languages, aimed at guaranteeing the rights of foreign residents who cannot read Korean.

The forms, required under the Mental Health Welfare Act, must be given to patients at every stage of admission and discharge. They include a notice of patient rights and a form on which a patient states a view on being admitted. The translations cover English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Uzbek, Tagalog and Khmer.

The center said the number of foreign residents in Korea reached 2.783 million as of December last year, up 5.0 percent from a year earlier.

The work began with six forms in English in 2019 and has widened each year since, reaching nine forms in seven languages last year. This year the center added the remaining documents so that every form needed across the whole admission and discharge process now exists in all seven languages.

A professional agency produced a first draft, which was then reviewed by native speakers of each language, including interpreters who advise multicultural families, who rewrote phrasing they judged unclear or awkward.

"It is most important to improve understanding of the admission and discharge process and to guarantee access to information for the protection of patient rights, so that nobody suffers unnecessary difficulty in psychiatric treatment because of language," said Nam Yun-young, director of the National Center for Mental Health. "We will guide hospitals nationwide and strengthen promotion through related institutions so that patients unfamiliar with Korean can clearly understand their legal rights and use them on the spot."

The center has sent promotional posters to psychiatric hospitals and clinics nationwide and will keep briefing professional associations and related bodies on how to use the forms. The translated documents can be downloaded from the center's website.