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Police on Wednesday arrested a 61-year-old construction worker on suspicion of killing his younger brother, with whom he lived in Katsushika Ward's Higashi Kanamachi.
According to police, Nobuyasu Seki claimed that his brother, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia about 30 years ago, had requested that Seki kill him because he could no longer pay for his medication. Seki told police that it cost his brother about 20,000 yen for his monthly visit to the hospital.
The brother, 52-year-old Toshikazu Seki, was found dead in their apartment at 11:25 p.m. on Tuesday night, with a towel wrapped around his neck, apparently having died from suffocation. Police said Seki showed up at a neighborhood police box and said he had killed his brother.
He was quoted as saying, "Recently both my brother and I were having trouble finding work because of the economy, and he asked me to kill him. He told me: 'I just can't do it myself.' "
© Wire reports
14 Comments
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seesaw
Brotherly love?...I don't know what to make up of this society...hope other posters could share some opinions...please.
Disillusioned
Well, considering 24% of the adult population have mental illnesses and the majority of these people have schizophrenia it would be a good way to cull a quarter of the population and relieve us normal people from being paranoid about some wacko pushing you in front of train because his mother wouldn't make him a cup of tea. Go for it! Kill all the freaks!
combinibento
A sad ending to this family's ill-equipped battle with a lifelong mental illness. Interestingly, the story mentions the victim was schizophrenic but does not necessarily discuss how this condition had anything to do with the events (beyond the costly hospital visits). Presumably the killing here is the result of both brothers being unable to cope with the difficulties caused by the brother's mental illness, which may have also included some horrible bouts of depression.
Arkamedes
wow
bamboohat
the amount of hopelessness required not only to ask your brother to kill you, but for the brother to go ahead and do it is absolutely staggering.
whyamiinjapan
Severe desperation. People need help. We all need help.
captainjohann
sIR, It is easy to blame the brother. As a father of only daughter who is Schizophrenic, i sympathize and empathize with the carer.Any one who criticizes the brother must stay with a schizophrenic in his/her home for a month before commenting. Even the richest nation in earth (USA) has shifted the onus of caring to PRISONS in the guise of freedom act of 1960 and they execute schizophrenics for murders committed during acute psychotic phase!!!
IchyaWarFare
Not sure if I could it, if it is true. RIP.
sageb1
This is the result of HMO -- if Japan had a national social health program, the cost of medication would have been subsidized. So in essence, running a hospital like a business is an indirect cause of this tragedy.
Dennis Bauer
No note from his brother approving it otherwise it is just murder.
geboren1900
A rich country like Japan should have some sort of basic help for psychiatric disabled ppl. Medication is expensive, but they can live a normal life and contribute to society if the get help, so its in everyones interest if society pay for their medication.
sageb1
this article needs study, and application, but unfortunately, few Japanese doctor will apply it because a US female psychiatric doctor wrote it.
http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/acs/tacs-psychadmissions.html
sharky1
This is so sad. Schizophrenia has a very strong genetic link, and is usually triggered by some sort of stress. It is likely that this brother was also genetically prone to schizophrenia and acted out in a brief onset of this disease. This would fit the diathesis-stress model of schizophrenia. Japan has a history of treating this disease with neuroleptic drugs, and not providing other kinds of therapy for out patients. Any family caring for an outpatient relative with schizophrenia needs to be in therapy for the sake of everyone involved. Just doesn't happen on Japan. My experiences with the mental health care in Japan prompts me to estimate that they are about 60 years behind the US in this area. Mental disorders in Japan are still considered an embarrassment to the family. Very sad state of affairs indeed.
sageb1
IMHO the brother voluntarily admitted himself to the psych hospital, since he had to pay for his medication. As well, he certainly wasn't educated about his disease, probably due to shame.
His inappropriate behavior possibly led to a form of shunning by his immediate community.
So IMHO he was originally hikikomori, and in a depressive fugue asked his brother to kill him.
You'd think that'd be a call for his brother to involuntarily commit him, but both being poor, he couldn't accept the resposibility.
This suggests that NHI isn't high enough to subsidize care, and that the lack of community involvement with psychiatric hospitals means that patients with a limited social network would not get the care afforded to patients with a large social network.
It looks to me like the poor, being considered an embarrassment to the local community, are still not getting adequate care in Japan.