Tokyo “If this continues I’ll be killed．．． please help me．” Patients continued to die and be discharged from Hachioji Takiyama Hospital even after NHK’s scoop．
※7/29 (Mon) 20:12 distribution Bunshun Online “ETV Special Report: Discharge from Hospital Due to Death – The Dark Side of Mental Health Care” aired on NHK-E Tele on February 25 last year. It was hailed as the best scoop on television in 2023. He has won the top prizes of major awards, including the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association Award, the Broadcasting Association Grand Prix, the Ishibashi Tanzan Waseda Journalism Award, and the Poverty Journalism Award. Takiyama Hospital is a private psychiatric hospital located in Hachioji City, Tokyo. In addition to the psychiatry department, the hospital also has an internal medicine department and is capable of providing dialysis treatment, so patients with coexisting mental illnesses and other conditions such as kidney disease are sent here from other hospitals. There, nurses punch, slap, pinch and kick elderly patients who are bedridden without asking any questions. Violence and abuse are commonplace. Physical restraint, such as tying people to beds, has also become commonplace. According to the data obtained, approximately 80% of hospitalized patients died before being discharged. There was a horrifying reality that once a patient was admitted to the hospital they could not be discharged unless they died – a phenomenon known as “discharge upon death.” “At this rate I’ll be killed… Please help me.” The elderly male patient, who begged the lawyer for help in a distressed voice, later died. It’s been 1 year and 4 months since then. The second installment of a series tracking what happened at Takiyama Hospital was “ETV Special: Death, Discharge, and More Darkness,” which aired on June 29th. What was impressive about this documentary was that it delved into the issue of “hospital directors and money,” a topic that is usually the preserve of weekly magazines. (Part 1 of 2 / Continued in Part 2) ◆ ◆ ◆ “Death discharges” continued after that What happened to this frightening hospital where violence and abuse were rampant? It is generally quite difficult to report on what happens after a scoop. If it were just the first scoop, the shocking footage providing evidence of the “assault” would be enough to make a documentary. However, if a follow-up were to be released and a sequel investigated, it would be dismissed as simply a rehash unless the “bigger picture and background” surrounding the hospital’s management and nature, and even mental health care as a whole, were to be shed light. The reporting team delved into the bigger picture and took on a full-scale challenge. Following the initial reports, police investigated the hospital, arrested five nurses and others, and charged them with summary offences. The supervisory authority, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, also ordered the hospital to make improvements. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has also notified local governments across the country to prevent abuse. However, a lawyer who supported hospitalized patients and exposed the problem said, “Nothing has changed from the situation of patients being discharged after death.” In response to the city’s order to make improvements, Takiyama Hospital established an “Abuse Prevention Committee.” A “third-party committee” mainly consisting of lawyers was established to investigate the truth of the abuse. Tokyo also conducted interviews with patients. We have begun supporting patients in transferring to and from hospitals. However, progress has been slow due to administrative silos, a reluctance by public hospitals to accept patients, and the reluctance of private hospitals, who were expected to be the main recipients, to address issues such as costs and how to handle patients with complications. Continue reading below.
Just because the man who committed mass murder by putting a foreign object into an IV drip wasn’t sentenced to death, it’s as if the court has acknowledged that it’s okay to kill people over 70 years old using medical care as a cover.
If neither his family nor other hospitals will accept him, then he has no choice but to be discharged upon death. Are they going to just throw him out and say he’s being discharged today?
It’s organized murder. Japan is a country that is kind to corporate crime, especially Big Motors, so there shouldn’t be any problem if you do it in Japan.
This director was doing something similar at a hospital called Asakura Hospital, but it was discovered and closed in 2001. Now he’s the director of another hospital and there are tons of deaths going on. That’s horrifying.
There is the Yamamoto Hospital case, which was scooped by a person named Shohei Hara in YomiDoctor. This was also for dialysis, but the point is that they made false claims to health insurance for unnecessary surgeries. What’s more, the director of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and lawmakers tried to stop this investigation.
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