Director of Facility for Disabled Attacks Resident with Heated Spoon Out of Anger for Being Splashed with Urine

From The Yomiuri Shimbun

December 29 2023

FUKUSHIMA – On December 28th, Fukushima Prefecture and the Prefectural Social Welfare Corporation reported that a male employee in his 40s injured a male resident in his 60s with a physical disability at Fukushima Prefecture Keyaki-so, a support facility for people with disabilities in Nishigo Village, Fukushima Prefecture. It was announced that there had been abuse that resulted in the infliction of injuries. The prefecture will conduct an on-site inspection of the facility in accordance with the Act on Prevention of Abuse of Persons with Disabilities in the new year.

Keyaki-so is operated by the organization as the designated manager, and as of the 1st of this month, 74 people are enrolled. The staff member was a chief support worker who had been with the facility for 17 years and was in charge of the wing where the residents lived.

According to the announcement, on the morning of September 11th last year, a staff member dipped a spoon in boiling water and applied it to about 10 areas of the resident, including his back and legs, causing burns. He said he was angry that he was covered in urine from a resident who had tried to go to the bathroom the night before and didn’t make it in time. The resident has already made a full recovery.

When the abuse occurred, other employees heard the screams and noticed the damage, but senior officials did not report it, and the organization only learned of the abuse on the 21st of this month during an annual interview survey of all employees. did. Katsuhiro Sekiya, executive director and secretary general of the organization, apologized, saying, “The training and guidance were not thorough.”