A government-subsidized free telephone consultation service that started in March in response to growing social problems after the Great East Japan Earthquake is being overwhelmed, it has been learned.
Calls from people with various worries have surpassed the hotline's capacity. This reflects the severity of the current social climate, as the hotline takes many calls about serious concerns such as "I want to die" and "I haven't eaten anything for five days."
The around-the-clock service, named "Yorisoi (staying together) Hotline," is operated by the Shakaiteki Hosetsu (social inclusion) Support Center, a general incorporated association based in Tokyo.
As a support service that accepts calls about issues such as poverty, unemployment and bullying, the hotline has become a well-known resource. About 20,000 calls are received each day but only about 1,200 of them are connected.
At each of the hotline's 38 call centers located throughout the nation, 30 lines are open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. At other times 10 lines are available. Two consultants are in charge of one line and a total of about 1,200 counseling staff take turns accepting calls.
Local lawyers who have cooperated with the project provide advice when needed. If problems are life-threatening, support staff from welfare organizations rush to callers' locations.
As awareness of the hotline spread through word of mouth on the Internet and other means, it became difficult to get through to a consultant. Currently, a call is only connected after 20 attempts on average.
About 70 percent of problems concern everyday issues, with many of the callers in their 30s to 50s. Their problems are mainly about poverty and solitude. Their troubles include "I lost my house after I became unemployed," "There is no point in living" and "I just wanted to talk with someone."
A man in his 30s who lost his job and has applied for welfare called for help, saying, "I have no money and haven't eaten anything for days." The consultant who took his call judged the man was in a life-threatening condition from his worn-out voice. The consultant contacted a support center, which delivered some food to him. The man was grateful, saying, "No one had helped me before even though I consulted some offices."
Twenty percent of consultations are about suicide. A man in his 30s called the hotline at the end of March, saying, "I have prepared a kitchen knife as I intend to kill myself." The man was quoted by a consultant as saying he was a bachelor whose parents had passed away. He had to quit his job due to illness. The consultant listened to his woes for two hours before contacting a support center. A staff member then raced to help the man. The man is now starting to regain his will to live, according to the support center.
Consultations about violence against women and sexual issues each account for 6 percent of calls.
Tomoko Endo, secretariat chief of the support center, said: "I'm sure there are many other people who have serious problems. I want the government to expand this kind of support system."
The center started the hotline service in Sendai in October last year. The hotline was chosen as an assistance project by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, which aims to help people solve their problems when facing difficulties. After receiving subsidies of around 2.1 billion yen from the government, the hotline service has expanded nationwide.
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| All for naught: Supporters of an 86-year-old man who has been on death row 40 years are stunned after the Nagoya High Court rejected his retrial appeal Friday over his conviction of fatally poisoning five women in 1961 in Nabari, Mie Prefecture. KYODO |
NAGOYA — The Nagoya High Court rejected a retrial appeal Friday of an 86-year-old man who has been on death row for four decades for the fatal poisoning of five women in 1961 in Nabari, Mie Prefecture, ruling his retracted confession made under initial grillings remains "basically trustworthy."
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| Masaru Okunishi |
Even though Masaru Okunishi was initially acquitted and the high court in 2005 opted to reopen the case, presiding Judge Yasuo Shimoyama said Friday, "It is unquestionable that only Okunishi could have mixed pesticide into the wine" that poisoned the victims.
Okunishi's confession, made when he was under interrogation, "is basically trustworthy," Shimoyama added.
The defense counsel will file a special interlocutory appeal with the Supreme Court.
The high-profile case involves the poisoning of 17 women on March 28, 1961, at a community meeting in Nabari. Five of the women, including Okunishi's wife, died, and 12 fell sick.
Okunishi confessed to investigators that he had laced the wine with an agricultural chemical to resolve a love triangle involving himself, his wife and his girlfriend, but retracted his confession before being indicted.
Protesting his innocence, Okunishi was initially acquitted by the Tsu District Court in 1964 on grounds of insufficient evidence, but the Nagoya High Court overturned that ruling and sentenced him to hang in 1969. The Supreme Court finalized the verdict in 1972.
Okunishi subsequently filed seven petitions for a retrial, finally leading the high court to reopen the case in 2005. But another presiding judge at that court nullified the decision in response to an objection filed by prosecutors.
After the appeal by Okunishi's counsel, the Supreme Court turned the case back to the high court in 2010, arguing it should examine the toxic substance used in the crime more scientifically.
In the latest deliberation, the defense submitted new evidence to the high court, claiming the type of pesticide used in the crime was different from the one Okunishi had confessed to using. It argued that a characteristic component of the substance was not detected in the wine.
Shimoyama rejected the argument, however, saying that the defense failed to prove the pesticide Okunishi had claimed to have used was different from the one actually used.
Okunishi told one of his lawyers at the Nagoya Detention House on Friday that he regretted the high court decision but said he is confident of winning at the final stage and called for continued support.
Osamu Watanabe, a law school professor at Konan University, said Friday the high court should have reopened the case as it has not been scientifically disproven that a different type of pesticide was mixed in the wine.
As long as there remains a possibility that Okunishi was the victim of a miscarriage of justice, the case should be reopened in line with the principle of innocent until proven guilty, he said.
But Takeshi Tsuchimoto, a former prosecutor at the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office and now a professor emeritus at Tsukuba University, called Friday's decision is reasonable.
"The high court determined in a firm voice after examining all the evidence — old and new — that Okunishi is (definitely) the real culprit," he said.
As expats, sometimes life can get stressful. Really stressful. Perhaps to the point of needing help in the form of counseling. But how do you get that kind of help in a foreign country, especially if the country's native language isn't English, or your native language?
I wondered about this myself when I was dealing with a bout of labrynthitis a couple years ago and the doctors kept telling me the reason I felt so bad was due to a mental issue. They were wrong, although I suppose it was technically, "all in my head." However, it got me thinking, what if I ever needed counseling here in Japan? Would I be able to find help? Someone that would understand me and not form opinions based on one culture?So I sought out answers from an expert: psychotherapist and clinical psychologist Andrew Grimes ofTokyo Counseling Services. We discussed a few different things, including:
Today we're doing something a little different with this interview - you'll find it below in audio form rather than text (although hopefully I can get it transcribed eventually). It's my first audio interview, so you'll have to excuse the fact I'm not quite as talented as the Japan podcasters out there, but I think the content in this interview if insightful and worth a listen.
Surviving in Japan: What You Should Know About Mental Health in Japan and How to Find Help (Podcast Interview with Andrew Grimes, Director of Tokyo Counseling Services).
http://www.survivingnjapan.com/2012/05/what-you-should-know-about-mental.html
*******Please check out Tokyo Counseling Services:Tokyo Counseling ServicesFUKUSHIMA -- Mikio Watanabe, 61, and his family are poised to file a lawsuit against Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) on May 18 demanding about 72.5 million yen in compensation for his wife's suicide soon after the outbreak of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, it has been learned.
Along with three other family members, Mikio Watanabe plans to bring the case to the Fukushima District Court on May 18. Watanabe and his family argue that the Fukushima nuclear disaster led his wife, Hamako, to suffer depression and commit suicide at the age of 58. According to a group of lawyers supporting victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, it will be the first lawsuit to be filed over suicides related to the nuclear crisis.
According to the group of lawyers, on the morning of July 1, 2011 Hamako committed suicide by pouring gasoline over her body and setting herself on fire at a garbage incinerator near her house, to which she made a temporary visit with Mikio from their apartment that the local government had rented for them in the city of Fukushima.
The couple had taken shelter at their relatives' homes and gymnasiums in Fukushima Prefecture since March 15, 2011. They then returned to their home once, but because the Yamakiya district, about 40 kilometers northwest of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, where their home was located, was designated as a planned evacuation zone in April last year, they moved to the rented apartment in the city of Fukushima in June after a few months of waiting.
During this period, Hamako's place of work was closed down and she had to live apart from her 37-year-old eldest son and other relatives, and she started to show symptoms of insomnia and had a poor appetite. The group of lawyers says, "Because she was deprived of the basics of life such as her residence and job, she suffered an extremely heavy psychological burden." Thus the group of lawyers says that's why she started to develop depression. Therefore, they argue that there are causal relations between the nuclear disaster and her depression and her suicide.
Her husband, Mikio, said, "The accident changed everything in our lives. I decided to go to court because I thought no more victims should cry themselves to sleep."
On the planned lawsuit, an official of the public relations department at TEPCO only said, "We are not aware of it. Therefore we would like to decline comment."
May 10, 2012(Mainichi Japan)
Click here for the original Japanese story
Labor ministry's proposed mental health test draws criticism from experts
A law amendment being promoted by the health ministry that would require workers to undergo a standardized mental health test with very little scientific backing is attracting criticism from mental health experts.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare submitted the draft revision to the Industrial Health and Safety Law to the Diet late last year. While the Diet has yet to engage in full-fledged debate on the issue, if the proposal is passed, employers would be legally bound to provide a specified mental health test to its employees in addition to regular health examinations.
In the test, the health ministry has identified nine symptoms such as "I'm extremely tired" and "I feel melancholy," on which workers would be asked to rate themselves on a four-level scale. The results of the test would not be revealed to employers without the employees' consent, and if necessary, test takers would be interviewed by a doctor.
The ministry maintains that the purpose of the standardized test is the early detection of people with high levels of stress, as part of its efforts to reduce suicides and depression.
However, Norito Kawakami, a professor of mental health at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Medicine, says, "People with high levels of stress are not necessarily at the highest risk for depression. Of those who are determined to be 'depressed' according to mental health tests that are currently used in the private sector, 5 to 20 percent of people are actually diagnosed with depression." Moreover, there have been no studies to show that looking into the nine items proposed for the test leads to the prevention of depression or suicide.
According to the health ministry's calculations, the cost of testing, which includes an interview with a doctor, comes out to 350 yen per person. Approximately 30 million workers would be subject to the test, and if implemented, the tests would cost business operators a total of 10.5 billion yen.
"It's wasteful to put money into a system whose efficacy has yet to be proven," Kawakami says.
Meanwhile, Jun Nakamura, a psychiatry professor at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, warns of the confusion that such tests could cause for the medical industry. "If people are mechanically advised to consult psychiatrists based on their test results, it could throw medical facilities into confusion," he says. He adds that workers could be rejected by others in the workplace if tests are implemented before there is more widespread understanding for psychiatric illness, and advocates caution. "It would not be too late to make (a mental health test) mandatory after we obtain evidence from model projects."
Cases of suicide and depression in Japan saw a steep rise beginning in the late 1990s, when it became clear that the Japanese economy was suffering from stagnation. The labor ministry's current anti-depression policy planning began at the behest of former Labor Minister Akira Nagatsuma, who aimed to turn that situation around.
Then Labor Minister Nagatsuma demanded that mental health screening be included in companies' regular health examinations for their employees, which was reflected in a report produced in May 2010 by a ministry project team. An expert panel that was then established met six times in just a month and a half, coming up with a framework for the mental health test.
The then Cabinet of Prime Minister Naoto Kan approved a "new growth strategy" for the country that included raising the number of workplaces implementing mental health measures to 100 percent by the year 2020. The initiative in its beginnings appeared to be a largely politician-led one, and one member of the expert panel recalls having the impression that it was a "rash process" in which the conclusion was already decided before the deliberations began.
Asked about the criticisms directed against the proposed mental health test, an official at the labor ministry's Industrial Health Division said, "We obtained the deliberation committee's understanding on the validity (of the test)."
Kaleidoscope of the Heart: Having one's own sanctuary for grief
At a recent symposium that I attended, I learned some shocking information from Yasuyuki Shimizu, the head of a suicide prevention nonprofit organization called Lifelink.
Among those who call the group for help, there are many bereaved family members who lost their loved ones to last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami. What was particularly significant for me was that, according to Mr. Shimizu, one year after the disasters, not much has changed for many of those grieving.
The bereaved family members often describe their conditions as "being at a loss as to what to do." The feeling of being completely stumped by how to start to heal their emotional wounds lingers even a year after the disasters.
As I was listening to Mr. Shimizu, part of me was surprised, but part of me also thought that such a state of mind is rather natural. In fact, it is rather impossible to expect people who have lost a loved one to suddenly be healed in a year or so.
We often hear words along the lines of "The clock has stopped since then," or "Since that day, I haven't moved a single step forward." However, if one comes to think about it, this is a rather normal human response -- and it is not only limited to those who lost a dear one in last year's disasters.
In our lives we are always surrounded by countless possibilities of unexpected personal loss, disease and major failure. When something devastating like this happens to us, we are often told by others to fight on and not give in to it, but the reality is that it always takes time to overcome such incidents.
There will be a certain period of time -- sometimes half a year, sometimes a year, or even longer -- when we won't be able to do anything but blankly stare into space. Sometimes it can take years before we once again become aware of the changing seasons.
In my consultation room, I often wonder whether a period of grief should be as short as possible. Whenever we treat patients who have suffered a major shock in their lives, we psychiatrists always tell them the following: "You must have suffered a great deal. However, if you take this medicine, you will feel a bit better. It will shorten the grief period and help you get better soon."
While this is not a lie per se, that is how we prescribe anti-depressants and other medications, while we sometimes also think that what the person really needs is to embrace the grief and take as much time as he or she needs to deal with the emotional pain.
Unfortunately, however, modern society does not allow people the privilege of a long recovery from a sad and painful event in life. If people tell their employers that they are in need of a half year's leave to recover from a personal loss, they will most likely be recommended to quit their job or see a doctor and do something about it as soon as possible.
I sometimes think how wonderful it would be if people had their own "sanctuary for grief" -- a place far away from daily house chores and work, where they can be free to think about their grief as much as they need.
Perhaps, at the moment, Lifelink is the closest thing we have to such a place. (By Rika Kayama, psychiatrist)
April 01, 2012(Mainichi Japan)
Click here for the original Japanese story
Available online 27 March 2012
In Press, Corrected Proof — Note to users
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Available online 27 March 2012
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883941712000118
A number of so-called "lonely deaths" have been discovered across Japan this year, some weeks or even months after the people passed away. In many of these cases, a physically or mentally impaired person has died following the passing of their sole caregiver. Without the means to feed themselves or keep warm, they departed our world unnoticed, and in pitiable conditions.
The realities of Japan's aging society are about to hit the country's urban centers in earnest, and methods for supporting the families of the elderly and the disabled -- two groups vulnerable to social isolation -- must be prepared sooner rather than later.
In one case in Sapporo, a 42-year-old woman and her mentally disabled sister, 40, were found in their apartment about a month after they'd died. The elder sister had apparently passed away from an illness, leaving her sibling to fend for herself. She could not, and is thought to have frozen to death.
In another case at an apartment in Tachikawa, Tokyo, a 4-year-old mentally disabled boy died after his mother, 45, passed away. In the same Tokyo city, the bodies of two women thought to be a mentally disabled mother, 95, and daughter, 63, were found in a public housing unit.
In all these incidents, the bodies were not discovered for one to two months after the people had died. There was a similar incident in Yokohama, where a 77-year-old woman and her mentally impaired son, 44, were found dead.
The first common feature of all these incidents is that they all happened in apartments in urban areas. The second is that they all involve pairs of people, one of whom was an elderly or disabled person being cared for by the other. The third is that none of the households were receiving social services or welfare payments, and fourth, none of the dead had significant social interactions with their neighbors.
There are many households just like these all over Japan's cities. And these days, as much of society goes about its business in relative tranquility, sometimes no one notices when the caregiver in one of these homes falls ill or has a debilitating accident. Then, there is nothing left but to die, shut away in their apartment, their disabled charge following soon after.
Much attention has been paid to the aging of Japan's rural population, but it is the major cities that are now the front line in this trend; the Tokyo area, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sapporo and so on. City dwellers often have only ephemeral connections to their neighbors, and internal family supports are also weak. The average number of people per household in Tokyo, for example, is 1.99.
There were clues to the lonely deaths mentioned above. Utility bills stopped getting paid and the electricity and gas were shut off, mail started to pile up, and neighborhood council membership fees weren't submitted. In some cases, worried neighbors consulted municipal officials. However, privacy concerns prevented anyone from reaching out to help. Certainly, the municipal governments concerned deserve criticism for their negligence, but every local body needs to take the initiative and work out policies on what to do in similar situations.
Home nursing insurance and social services have slowly improved. Compared to the "pinpoint" support provided by homecare workers and day centers, however, the "blanket" support of group homes for the elderly and disabled remains insufficient in local areas. There are a number of reasons for this, including opposition from local communities, severe anti-disaster and architectural regulations, and tiny budgets holding down staff numbers.
Social services that directly address the needs of people caring for an elderly or disabled family member are also required. Under present conditions, it should surprise no one if we see more lonely deaths like the tragedies uncovered this year.
(Mainichi Japan) March 22, 2012
