Report into worker who burned resident at Fukushima facility for disabled delayed by COVID pandemic

From The Mainichi

December 29 2023

FUKUSHIMA – A worker at a support facility for people with disabilities repeatedly pressed a heated spoon against the body of a resident after dipping the spoon in boiled water, the Fukushima Prefecture social welfare corporation and the prefectural government announced on Dec. 28.

The abuse of the resident in his 60s took place at Fukushima-ken Keyaki-so, a facility operated by the corporation in the prefectural village of Nishigo.

The worker, aged in his 40s, has been ordered to stay home since Dec. 24, and the corporation will consider punishing those involved, and work out measures to prevent a recurrence.

According to the corporation, the staff member pressed the heated spoon against nearly 10 locations of the resident’s body, including his back and legs, on the morning of Sept. 11, 2022. The previous night, the resident had peed on the worker while he was assisting in the washroom, and the worker apparently told the corporation, “My feelings from that time welled up in me.”

There were burn marks on the resident’s body, but a hospital examination found they had completely healed, apparently after the worker bought medicine and applied it to the resident.

A staffer in charge of abuse prevention at the facility was notified of the abuse by another employee several weeks after the incident, and reported the case to the facility director in late February this year.

During a regular hearing with all employees by the corporation in December, the alleged abuse surfaced, and the worker in question admitted to the misconduct.

With regard to why the report came in so late, the director and others apparently said they had been busy dealing with a cluster of COVID-19 infections and moving into a new place, while one worker stated, “I didn’t have the courage to speak out about it.”