On May 25, Fukushima Prefecture held an online training session on countermeasures against the new coronavirus for employees of facilities for the elderly and disabled. The purpose was to prevent the outbreak of clusters. This is the first time that a prefectural government has held a training session for elderly welfare facilities and support facilities for the disabled.
The coronavirus vaccine rollout in Japan has been focusing on senior citizens. But recently there are growing calls for childcare givers to be offered priority inoculations.
The Sapporo metropolitan government announced that cluster was confirmed at a welfare service office for the disabled, where six people were infected, including four employees and two clients.
The social welfare corporation ‘Imizu Fukushi Kai’, which runs Imizu-en, a facility for those with mental disabilities in Toyama Prefecture’s Imizu City where a cluster of the new coronavirus has emerged, announced on the 23rd that a total of 60 users and employees had been infected in one day.
According to the Japan Association of Psychiatric Hospitals, from March last year to January this year, a total of 1,548 people, including 1,123 patients and 425 staff members, were infected at 116 facilities nationwide. Of these, about 60% wanted to be transferred to coronavirus beds but were unable to do so, mostly because of mental disorders, according to the association.
Japanese ruling and opposition parties on Thursday 20th May agreed to enact a new law to allow COVID-19 patients recovering in hotels or at home to vote by mail in national and local elections. COVID-19 patients and people who had close contact with them are required to stay in hotels or at home while they recover. It is difficult for them to visit polling stations.
In April, the app “shikAI” that supports the movement of visually impaired people about 200 meters between the exit of Tokyo Metro Higashi-Ikebukuro Station (Higashi-Ikebukuro 4) and the ward office (Minami-Ikebukuro 2) “started to provide voice route guidance.”
While the vaccination program for elderly people aged 65 and over has started in Aizuwakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture, a blind man living alone in the city received an envelope containing a vaccination ticket without Braille markings, and it was revealed that he was unable to check the contents for two weeks.
Fifty companies from Japan are participating, including Kao Corporation, Suntory Holdings Limited, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Limited and the Tokyo headquarters of the Yomiuri Shimbun.
Masakatsu Amami (71), a patient with cerebral palsy in Chiba City, said that it was unreasonable that the disability welfare benefits based on the Comprehensive Support Law for Persons with Disabilities were discontinued at the age of 65 and that the transition to long-term care insurance caused self-pay. On the 18th, the Chiba District Court dismissed the claim.
Barrier Free Japan