Gangseo District Signs Consignment Agreement with Bucheon St. Mary's Hospital for Mental Health Welfare Center

Consignment Agreement for Three Years
Specialized Operation for Suicide Prevention and Addiction Management

The Gangseo District Office in Seoul (District Mayor Jin Gyo-hoon) announced on July 31 that it has signed a consignment agreement with Bucheon St. Mary's Hospital (President Park Ik-sung) of The Catholic University of Korea for the operation and management of the Gangseo District Mental Health Welfare Center. The agreement will be in effect for three years, from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2029.

View of Bucheon St. Mary's Hospital. Provided by Gangseo District.

Under this agreement, the Gangseo District Mental Health Welfare Center will become a public specialized institution operated under consignment by Bucheon St. Mary's Hospital, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Ha Yeon Kim, a psychiatrist at Bucheon St. Mary's Hospital, has been appointed as the new director of the center and will oversee its overall operations.

The center's core projects will include planning community mental health promotion programs, managing severe mental disorders, providing care for individuals with alcohol use disorder, and implementing mental health promotion initiatives such as public relations, education, and suicide prevention, as well as crisis management for suicide prevention. The district plans to utilize the hospital's infrastructure to implement life cycle-specific mental health management, respond to mental health crises, and pursue community-based suicide prevention projects.

Last year, the number of service cases provided to individuals with severe mental illness by the Gangseo District Mental Health Welfare Center was 6,382, up 5.6% from the previous year. The number of district residents who used the center was 93,343, an increase of 55.3% compared to the previous year.

Director Kim Ha Yeon said, "With this agreement, we will do our best to provide more specialized and systematic mental health services. We will work to strengthen the support system so that we can take care of each resident's mental well-being and respond quickly in crisis situations."

District Mayor Jin Gyo-hoon stated, "By building a cooperative system with a specialized medical institution, we are now able to pursue regional mental health promotion initiatives more stably. We will continue to provide generous support for the mental well-being of our residents."

For more information, please contact the Health Management Division of Gangseo District Public Health Center at 02-2600-5271 or the Gangseo District Mental Health Welfare Center at 02-2600-5926.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.