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Three suspicious deaths within two months at a Kawasaki nursing home last year have vast implications in a society aging as rapidly as Japan’s. As of now there are more questions than answers, but one broad question has arisen: How rampant is the physical abuse of elderly residents of nursing homes, many of whom are infirmed or suffering from dementia? The short answer would seem to be "very."
“Abuse is a problem at about half the facilities I’m familiar with,” Atsuhiko Nakamura, author of a book on the subject, tells Shukan Shincho (Sept 24). That’s not an unassailable statistic, but it is at least suggestive.
The nursing home that is the most recent focus of this kind of attention is called S Amiyu Kawasaki Saiwai-cho. When three residents aged between 86 and 96 fall to their deaths from upper-story balconies, are they accidents? The police investigation continues. The first to fall was an 87-year-old man from his fourth-floor balcony on Nov 4, 2014. The second, on Dec 9, was an 86-year-old woman, also from the fourth floor. The third incident occurred on Dec 31, the victim a 96-year-old woman who fell from the sixth floor.
A separate development may or may not be a coincidence: a 23-year-old former S Amiyu male employee arrested in May on suspicion of theft was, notes Shukan Shincho, on duty on the days of all three deaths.
The magazine interviews an unnamed relative of the 96-year-old woman. “Her mind was a bit clouded,” said the relative, “but just the day before, her grandchild had taken her for a walk and then a drive around Kawasaki, asking her, ‘Do you remember this place? And this?’ ‘Yes, yes, I remember,’ she said. ‘And then suddenly she was dead. No, it’s not natural.”
Media reports have stirred suspicions among relatives of other inmates who died at this facility or elsewhere. Were the deaths really accidental? They’d initially been accepted as such – too hastily, perhaps? A 60-year-old man in last December received a phone call from the home where his 89-year-old mother lived. She collapsed suddenly in the toilet, they told him. He accepted it at the time, but now has second thoughts. His mother wore a diaper and could hardly walk. She collapsed in the toilet? Really?
Nakamura, the author mentioned above, reminds us of the enormous pressures the facilities and their staff labor under. The nursing home population increases exponentially, but caregiving as a profession does not draw a corresponding number of candidates. It is very hard work and does not pay well. Most nursing homes are grievously understaffed, and morale is low. Also, he says, the sort of care many patients need, given their mental and physical state, may require treatment – forced feeding, forcible restraint – between which and abuse there is a very thin line, easily overstepped.
So a problem already growing seems likely to grow faster. Shukan Shincho cites health ministry statistics: in 2006, agencies nationwide under ministry jurisdiction were consulted on 273 occasions by relatives alleging care home abuse. By 2013 the figure had risen to 962.
© Japan Today
19 Comments
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danalawton1@yahoo.com
Actually I have no clue how bad things are.... but, without oversight in facilities such as this, bad things will happen. These facilities need cameras in public rooms and they need surprise visits by outside inspectors.
Tessa
Look after your own parents, you lazy ungrateful wretches!
smartacus
Tessa
A very insensitive comment. That's not always possible. My mother had Alzheimer's and needed special care. We were fortunate to be able to find a wonderful facility with genuinely caring staff.
But please don't criticize children of such elderly people because one day your parents may be in the same situation and you will be desperately looking for help.
Himajin
It's always those who've never done it who have the conviction that everyone should do it, and who make caustic remarks about people being selfish and ungrateful. You just show how little you know...dementia patients are often angry and violent as they don't recognize their own familes. Even those who aren't are often on the move 20 hours a day, day and night are turned upside down, and many are constantly trying to get back to their childhood homes, which may not even exist any longer.
Tessa, when you quit work to chase a dementia patient all day, keep them from running away, burning themselves, being taken advantage of by local vultures (unscrupulous sales people and the local stock broker), and losing everything important in the house, for even a few months (I did it for 5years, going to MIL's house for 12-14 hours a day) THEN you have the right to make judgements about who's ungrarefull and who isn't. She now has swallowing and choking issues and has had aspiration pneumonia three times, so yes, she's in a facility as she needs her throat suctioned out several times a day. I can no longer care for her at home, would you like to give it a try?
sensei258
@ Himajin - I commend you for all you've done for your MIL. I hope that, when the time came to move her to a care facility, you didn't feel guilty about it.
GW
Like I have said many times on jt do YOU wana grow old here......................I sure don't, this is already a huge problem for Japan & its going to get much much worse, I hazard to say its near an impossible task for Japan to properly take care of the eldery
And mere mortals are unlikely to be able to bear the costs, its going to get much uglier I am afraid!
Laguna
I had thought "rampant" was similar to "pregnant" - neither can be "slightly."
Tessa
Why don't you try working in a nursing home for 900 yen an hour? Or would that cut into your bon-bon time?
Tessa
Why don't you try working in a nursing home for 900 yen an hour? Or would that cut into your bon-bon time?
Moderator: Please stop posting offensive remarks on this thread.
Tessa
Why don't you try working in a nursing home for 900 yen an hour? Or would that cut into your bon-bon time?
Moderator: If you post this again, you will be suspended from the discussion board.
Novenachama
When a nursing home is understaffed it can lead to serious abuse and neglect of the elderly because the residents do not receive the level of care that is required. They may be not feed properly and may not receive sufficient fluids which can cause dehydration. An understaffed nursing home can also cause the workers to give the residents too much or too little attention, which could result in serious side effects. Staff members become overworked and the employee turnover rate is usually high. The employees may also lose patience and empathy for the resident, which could result in abuse. So understaffing seems to be directly linked to many of the nursing home abuse cases.
Tessa
Why don't you try working in a nursing home for 900 yen an hour? Or would that cut into your bon-bon time?
Moderator: You can have 24 hours off from posting. During this time, please refamiliarize yourself with the rules of the discussion board.
Joshua Degreiff
Defenetly Japan need new laws about cameras, and frequent visit of department of health or the department charge of elderly patients. These people work all their lifes is a counterparts they need some rest, of medic help. This is inescapable!
John-San
I was in hospital (Emergency) sitting next to my alcoholic brother ( 60 ) who was omit because he was found in a bad way having fits. While I was sitting there he started to fit. I sat there looking at him for about 3 minutes before the nurse who turn around and started freak-out. She hurried a needle and boasted up my brother and he came good after about a minute. She was upset with me because my brother nearly die. Well miss nurse I said, I am not good at medical stuff. So I assume you being right next to him realise what was going on. So should I have done what ? so next time I call a ambulance. So my brother would be dead if you did not turn around ? What I am saying even with the best care people die.
Himajin
You take it one day at a time. I did what needed to be done, and not always gladly, to be truthful. It's a helluva disease and hard to deal with. You eventually lose many of your friends as youhave no time for them, and all of a sudden find that years have gone by. She needed professional care, now has it, and I can sleep through the night. :-)
Akula
Elder abuse is likely something that goes well under reported in Japan, and elsewhere for that matter. Over here in the homes, care workers stealing from the elderly is fairly common.
It is very low paid and demanding work, but I tell you what, the companies that provide this care are very profitable.
Jim McBride
my own mother is elderly now and I look after her. My Korean wife was at one time an LVN in a nursing home for the elderly and on her advice I would not place one of our relatives in a "retirement home"
she worked at a fairly good rated home which usually had only a couple of nurses on duty and never enough orderlies to handled the work load. I gathered that she saw no intentional abuse but all the nurses were over worked due to many patients being ignored because the most staff was over worked, under paid and didn't care about their job.
what others mentioned about this as a career is true..the orderlies had no passion for this low paying job as a career and take it because it was the work they could find and at least for the orderly position it doesn't really require any credentials or requirements to get hired
Maverick7
This is only gonna get worse as the old people in Japan increases . Maybe start by paying care workers and nurses a decent wage . They get payed peanuts for the amount of work they do . It's no wonder care workers are losing it and taking their anger out on the old folk . You would too being payed less than ¥10,000 for a 12hr shift . Also most staff are part time workers so their pay will be even less . Increase the pay and care workers will be more happy in their job and take on more full time workers . Keep it as it is and it will just get worse .