Taipei City Hospital

General Information on the Taipei City Psychiatric Center

Taipei City Psychiatric Center (TCPC) was founded in April 15, 1969 by Professor Eng-Kung Yeh of Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital. In January 2005, when the city hospitals were re-organized and came under one system, the TCPC was reborn as Taipei City Hospital Songde Branch. TCPC is serving as the only public psychiatric hospital in Taipei City and is also the most important psychiatric teaching hospital in Taiwan and is affiliated with Taipei Medical University.

TCPC is responsible for providing mental health services to the 7.4 millions residents of northern Taiwan. The hospital provides comprehensive psychiatric services, including acute care, emergency service, chronic rehabilitation, day care, community mental health and walk-in clinics. There are a total of 612 beds for inpatient services, which includes 419 beds for psychiatric acute treatment, 175 beds for psychiatric rehabilitation, 12 beds for internal medicine, and 6 beds for neurology. Among 419 acute care beds, 30 beds have been reserved for alcohol and substances detoxification since 1991.

TCPC has run 25 to 35 walk-in clinics open daily in various different fields such as adult and/or adolescent psychiatry, internal medicine and neurology. The number of out-patients is approximately 400-500 people per day. There has been a 2%-5% annual rate of increment in general. In addition, there is a busy psychiatric emergency service, which is opened 24 hours per day.

The number of staff at the TCPC is 523, which include 32 staff psychiatrists, 3 general internists, 1 neurologist, 212 psychiatric nurses, 16 pharmacists, 15 clinical psychologists, 15 psychiatric social workers, 22 occupational therapists, 9 medical technologists, and 4 dietitians as well as many support personnel.

Other than as a clinical services provider, the TCPC plays a significant role in psychiatric research, which is sponsored by many organizations, including National Science Council, Ministry of Health, National Health Research Institute and Taipei City Government. The TCPC also maintains a working relationship with several foreign research facilities such as National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (USA), and Tavistock Clinic (UK).

There are six laboratories within the TCPC, made up of (1) Laboratory of Psychopathology and Psychiatric Epidemiology, (2) Laboratory of Biological Psychiatry and Psychopharmacology, (3) Laboratory of Addiction Science, (4) Laboratory of Community of Psychiatry, (5) Laboratory of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and (6) Laboratory of Psychotherapy. Each year, there are over 25 scientific papers published in various peer-reviewed (including SCI) journals. The innovative and important findings of this research has led to the work originated from or in collaboration with TCPC being cited as the cover stories in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (2005) and the American Journal of Psychiatry (2010).

In accordance with increased economic prosperity and changes in social diversity, the demand for psychiatric services will undoubtedly gradually increase. As the important psychiatric teaching hospital in Taiwan, the TCPC has continuously played the leading role in order to facilitate the provision of quality service and the training of specialists, as well as carrying out research and development. The aim is to promote Taiwan as one of the best countries in Asia in terms of the quality of psychiatric services.