November 14, 2025
SEOUL – Five medical staffers at a hospital operated by psychiatrist and television personality Yang Jae-woong have been sent to court over the death of a patient who was physically restrained, according to local news reports Thursday.
Incheon prosecutors detained a doctor in his 40s, not Yang, and indicted four nurses in their 40s and 50s without detention on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death.
The charges stem from the death of a woman in her 30s in May 2024 at a psychiatric hospital in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province. She had been hospitalized for treatment of addiction to diet pills, but died of acute colonic pseudo-obstruction 17 days after being admitted. Prosecutors say her condition resulted from a lack of proper medical care.
Investigators found that the doctor failed to properly monitor the patient despite her complaints of severe abdominal pain and ordered nurses to administer psychotropic drugs. The doctor is also accused of falsifying medical charts while nurses allegedly injected the medications without a proper physician’s prescription.
Prosecutors said the staff also placed the patient, who continued to complain of pain, in a seclusion room, restrained her hands and legs, and neglected her.
Following the patient’s death, her family filed a complaint against the hospital staff.
In March, the National Human Rights Commission referred the case to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, calling for an investigation into alleged falsified medical records and negligence.