Corona19's first death in Korea was A, a mentally disabled person who had lived in the psychiatric closed ward of Qingdao Daenam Hospital for over 20 years. 102 people were admitted to the fifth-floor closed ward, 100 of whom were infected with Corona 19, and seven mentally disabled people, including Mr. A, died unfortunately. (Qingdao Daenam Hospital psychiatric closed ward is on the 4th floor, but uses '5' instead of '4', which means death, in floor numbers.)

Unlike the general doctors who moved to the negative pressure room (one person one room) for treatment, the government announced that the mentally disabled people at Daenam Hospital decided to treat by 'cohort isolation' at Daenam Hospital. The reason is that it is not easy to treat both mental illness and corona 19 infection.


* Cohort: The term used to refer to the sub-unit of the Roman army, borrowed from sociology to refer to a group of people who lived at the same time and together with a particular event, called a cohort, and that method of interpretation was called a cohort analysis. Called. The word 'cohort', combined with the word 'isolation' , refers to measures to block the entire medical institution where an infected person has been infected to prevent an infectious disease.


In addition, the Ministry of Health and Welfare created and distributed a guideline on corona 19 for disabled people's facilities on February 24, which included:


Two days later, the disability group called for emergency relief from the National Human Rights Commission, saying the government's 'cohort isolation' decision for psychiatric closed wards and disabled facilities is discrimination on the basis of disability. It also said it would transfer to other hospitals, including mental health centers. If such measures had been taken from the beginning, it would be regrettable that even some of the seven dead at that time could have avoided death.

The government's cohort quarantine measures may be inevitable in a national crisis of lack of medical staff and facilities due to the outbreak of Corona19. But what we need to remember is that containment measures for people with disabilities have already taken place before the onset of Corona19. 30,000 people with disabilities who cannot be independent even as adults, and whose families are not responsible for their independence, have already left the community and are segregated in residential facilities or mental health facilities. Not even in the country's crisis of coronal 19 outbreaks.

Some people may say that it is not natural for people with disabilities to live in disabled facilities, but not in the community, but it is not natural that people with disabilities are isolated from facilities.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ratified in 2008 by the Republic of Korea, on the premise that persons with disabilities have equal rights to live in the community through equal choices with others, the States Parties to the Convention agree that persons with disabilities enjoy these rights and It provides for an obligation to take effective and appropriate measures to promote integration and participation in furnaces.

However, Korea failed to fulfill its obligations as a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and in 2014 it was recommended by the UN Commission on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to establish a deinstallation strategy. The Moon Jae-in government promised to create an environment for settlement in communities such as de-installation at the time of its launch, but while it was unable to establish a concrete plan, the National Human Rights Commission of August 22, 2016, made the policy of the prime minister to prepare a 'decommissioning roadmap for the disabled'. I made a recommendation.


In 2014, the Shinan-gun Salt Slave Incident came to mind as people with disabilities were 'cohort quarantined' by the government. At that time, the government mobilized the police to rescue people with disabilities who were exploited, detained, and assaulted in the salt flats of Sinan-gun, Jeollanam-do, and contacted their families. He was taken to a homeless shelter in Mokpo.

So where are the disabled people in the homeless shelters now? Though shocking, some of them are still in homeless shelters. The state would say that they had rescued them from the crime of labor exploitation, but wasn't it "contained" by the homeless shelter, rather than "rescue" from the point of view of the disabled?

On May 5, 2018, a scene from <SBS It Wants to Know-Endless Hide and Seek, 63 Sinan Salt Slaves> comes to mind. Homeless shelter said to the news team that visited a disabled person in the homeless shelter. So far, no government official has ever visited a disabled person. Then said:

I have never received any attention. Nobody cares. ”




During the Sinan-gun Salt Slave in 2014, we were angry at the fact that people with disabilities were trapped on the island and exploited in labor because they did not settle properly in the community. However, today's reality is that people with disabilities are still isolated from homeless shelters and are unable to even settle in their communities.

In order to end the tragedy of disability abuses such as the Sinan County salt slavery and the disability cohort deaths occurring in Corona 19, a concrete roadmap for the disabled to settle in the community should be created as soon as possible.

# In-It # In-It #Choi Jung-gyu