Photo/Illutration Kande Hospital in Kobe’s Nishi Ward where workers are accused of abusing mentally disabled patients (Ryo Takeda)

KOBE--Hyogo prefectural police on March 24 rearrested four psychiatric hospital workers on charges of abusing patients and forcing two male patients to perform sexual acts on each other.

Motoki Wada, 27, a former assistant nurse at Kande Hospital in Kobe’s Nishi Ward, and three other male clinical nurses at the facility were rearrested on charges of quasi forcible indecency and assault, according to investigative sources.

Police on March 4 arrested Wada and five clinical nurses ranging in age from 26 to 41 on charges of forcing male in-hospital patients to kiss each other.

They were also suspected of pouring water on a patient in a bathroom, among other alleged abuses.

Wada and two nurses in the early hours of Oct. 31, 2018, are accused of forcing two male patients in their 50s and 60s to kiss each other.

On another occasion, Wada and two nurses on the evening of Sept. 20, 2019, are accused of making a male patient in his 70s sit in a chair in a bathroom and pouring water on him using a hose and bucket.

On the night of Sept. 25, 2019, Wada and two nurses are accused of placing a male patient in his 60s on the floor of a hospital room. Then they flipped over a bed with safety railings and placed it over the patient, trapping him underneath it for about 20 minutes.

“It was fun to see how they reacted,” Wada told police, according to sources.

During the investigation, police further found that Wada and the rearrested three nurses allegedly forced male patients to perform sexual acts on each other during the period from October 2018 to September 2019.

They also wrapped tape around a patient’s head, sources said.

The victims, between the ages of 50 to 79, were suffering from severe mental disorders.

Wada kept about 30 videos apparently shot while abusing patients on his smartphone, sources said.

The six arrested hospital workers including Wada shared these videos using a Line messaging app.

Under the Mental Health Law, it is not illegal to impose “physical restraint” and “isolation in a single occupancy room” under certain conditions on a patient hospitalized at a psychiatric hospital.

A law to prevent abuse against people with disabilities took effect in 2012, which requires knowledge of a disabled person being abused to be reported to a municipal government.

But such abuse occurring inside a hospital is exempt from the legal requirement.

Experts have pointed out that such a condition and legal loophole have put patients in a vulnerable position.  

"Because the law makes an exception for hospitals, hospital workers may have a low level of consciousness,” said Hiroyuki Nagaoka, director of Sasanokai, a Saitama-based social welfare corporation, which works to prevent abuse of disabled people.

(This article was written by Taishi Sasayama and Seishiro Igarashi.)

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