About 25.4 percent of the entire nation's people suffer from mental disorder in their life. Also, 60 percent of people are exposed to the danger of mental illness. Especially, among young people, depression and panic disorder are serious problems. About nine out of ten young men are experiencing severe depression. Moreover, the number of people who committed suicide because of mental illness is the most serious issue in the world. However, there are not enough clinics for mentally disordered people.

▲ Depression and panic disorder are fatal to teenagers

In public hospitals, there are not enough equipped rooms for mentally disordered people. In private hospitals, many doctors and nurses are reluctant to deal with them. Moreover, people who live in the countryside find it hard to get an appointment with a psychiatrist. For example, in Jeju Island, the patient's room is 0.1 per 100,000 patients. Also, the doctors and nurses who cure mentally disordered people are exposed to danger every time. A female nurse has to deal with patients who hold knives and scissors.

▲ Mental illness is common problem

There are reasons why the facilities for mentally disordered people are rare. First, the cognizance of mental disorder is wrong. Most of the people consider the patients as potential criminals. Then, the welfare policy is insufficient. According to the statistics from the government, the number of possible emergency hospitals is wrong. Also, there are not any aftercare services for patients to adjust to society. So, when the government tries to build a psychiatric hospital, the local government desperately opposes it. The hatred of residents and budgetary deficit result in the lack of facilities.

▲ Korea`s National Center for Mental Heatlth

The insufficiency of facilities and bad perception of people are the main reasons why mentally disordered people have difficulties. Everybody can suffer from a mental illness. So, the most important thing to consider for people to live mentally healthy is the improvement of people's awareness.

October 19th, 2019
by Jang Eugene