Strengthening Early Detection of Child Abuse and Supporting Physical and Mental Recovery of Victimized Children
Busan City announced that Dong-A University Hospital (Hospital Director An Hee-bae) has been selected as a ‘Metropolitan Child Abuse Dedicated Medical Institution’ (Saessak Jikimi Hospital) organized by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The ‘Metropolitan Child Abuse Dedicated Medical Institution’ is a medical institution operated to provide medical support for abused children and to strengthen the role of medical institutions within the child abuse response system.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare has been promoting its expansion and operation nationwide since this year, and currently, 13 medical institutions including Dong-A University Hospital are in operation nationwide.
Dong-A University Hospital is a tertiary general hospital operating 25 medical departments including pediatrics, psychiatry, emergency medicine, neurosurgery, and radiology, with a total of 179 specialists.
With its selection as a Metropolitan Child Abuse Dedicated Medical Institution, it plans to support consultations not only for reporting suspected child abuse cases discovered during the treatment process but also for high-difficulty abuse cases requiring multidisciplinary discussion, medical opinions on the causal relationship between child abuse and physical or mental damage, and cases requiring related medical information.
Additionally, as the hospital’s representative window for child abuse response, it will operate a ‘Child Protection Committee’ (Chairperson Choi Hee-won, Professor of Pediatrics) composed of 15 experts including doctors, nurses, lawyers, clinical psychologists, and medical social workers to establish a system for prompt response when incidents occur.
A city official stated, “Through the selection as a Metropolitan Child Abuse Dedicated Medical Institution, we plan to accelerate the promotion of the activation project for dedicated child abuse medical institutions,” and added, “We will create a happy city of Busan for children by early detection of child abuse cases and protection of abused children.”
As of March 2023, 11 institutions including Dong-A University Hospital have been designated as Busan City’s dedicated child abuse medical institutions, and there are plans to designate at least one additional dedicated child abuse medical institution per district and county by the end of the year.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
