Police in Sapporo have arrested a 27-year-old former nursing home employee on suspicion of abusing an 88-year-old male resident at the facility earlier this month.
According to police, the incident occurred at around 3:30 p.m. on May 9 at the facility in Chuo Ward, Hokkaido Broadcasting Corps reported. Police said Sho Takahashi is accused of kicking the elderly resident in the stomach.
On May 15, another employee noticed that the victim was in pain and he was taken to hospital where doctors said he had suffered a fractured bone in the lower part of his body.
The nursing home fired Takahashi after the abuse came to light and police arrested him on Thursday. He was quoted as saying he kicked the man because he was stressed out from caregiving and that the victim had gotten on his nerves recently.
© Japan Today
11 Comments
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Rodney
Old people are difficult. I watched my mother in law punch the dentist in the face in her care home. She also screamed at staff all the time.
justasking
When you see ads hiring for nursing care assistants and the starting wage is 1,000 in most cases you are not going to get the best and most professional individuals for aging seniors.
lunatic
You need professionals to care about our elders.
Let's regulate this nurses with proper preparation.
Spitfire
@lunatic,
To regulate the staff means to pay the decent staff a decent wage and Japan doesn't want to do that.
Mark
AGAIN? this is so horrible that should make people stop sending or trusting these so called care center with their loved ones.
Alex
Regardless of the fact that care staff are paid far too little for the kind of hard work they do, that surely does not excuse this scum's behavior. There are plenty of other minimum wage jobs that he could have taken on if he found the care industry too difficult. Never an excuse for beating up someone who you are literally being paid to care for, and who usually cannot care for or protect themselves. Work at a convenience store, and stop beating on the elderly!
Mark
The government is collecting taxes to care for elderly then it's trusting these private businesses to care for them BUT these businesses are NOT really caring they are collecting large sums of cash and paying their employees very little and could care LESS about the well being of the Elderly.
SHAME on this BROKEN SYSTEM
Mark
Better Die at home than at the hands of a LOSER.
falseflagsteve
This is outrageous and appears to becoming common. I’m horrified about how anyone could harm and elderly person like this, it’s beyond my comprehension.
Wesley
I'm horrified by this. But at the same time, I also wish there was more outlets for nursing home workers to reliev stress.
I wonder if therapy dogs would help? For both the elderly as well as their caretakers.
sir_bentley28
I'm starting to realize why some nursing homes and care facilities only hire older/mature people who are possibly grqandparents. Because they (both the companies and the mature employees) know that, just as being a being a parent, that job can get very stressful with the tantrums, unwilling to follow orders and other actions remnecent of a child.