Nippon no Arashi - Aiba (Part 1 of 3)
Hello again~! Welcome back (or welcome, if you're stopping by for the first time)!
This weekend we'll be traveling with Aiba-chan kinda all over the place, to take a look at the nursing care and social services of Japan (or at least, what it looked like in 2010...). I thought this trip was really fascinating, because this isn't something that's usually talked about, and also because it was interesting to hear why Aiba-chan decided to do this as his theme.
And without further ado, off we go! :D
Aiba Masaki and Japan’s Social Services and Nursing Care
Chiba/Kanagawa/Kyoto/Nara
Aiba Masaki’s journey started in his own home prefecture of Chiba. What does he want to see? For the theme of this trip, Aiba chose social services and nursing case, something he is interested in. Why did Aiba choose this theme? That answer became clear at the start of his trip.
The large role of Japan’s retirement homes
Fuji-mi Street is on the west side of Kisarazu Station. Just as its name says, if you stand on the street, you can see Mt. Fuji far off in the distance. On a clear, bright morning, Aiba Masaki arrived in Kisarazu City in Chiba Prefecture. Right away he set off to their first stop, a retirement home called “Idobata Genki.” What is a retirement home to begin with? And how is it different from a public elderly day service center? With this and many other “?” in mind, they decided to just visit one of these places. They arrived at Honmachi Shopping District, where many local people gather. In a lane off the main street, there is a building that looks like a regular house at first glance. That was Idobata Genki.
“Ojamashima-su.” (TN: standard greeting when entering someone else’s home). The building made them feel like they were visiting their relatives’ house. They were first shown to the second floor to meet with the board director, Itou Hideki-san (37 years-old), and facility director, Katou Masahiro-san (30 years-old). Here their conversation is inserted, as unedited as possible. Though it is a bit long, please give it a read, as it is deeply significant in providing one of the answers for the start of this journey.
Aiba: How many people do you have here right now?
Itou: Well, every day about 10 elderly people with dementia come. One of the distinct things about this place is that we didn’t want the elderly people to come here just to be something to be taken care of. We also have disabled or mentally handicapped people with no other local place to go come here as well, and both groups help take care of each other. Everyone works together and helps each other out here.
Aiba: Wow, amazing. My parents were both busy when I was little, so I was pretty much raised by my grandparents. And it was also some kind of fate/destiny that I had a classmate in elementary school who had a (physical) handicap, and I was put in charge of helping them out. Because I had that experience, I had always wanted to take care of my grandparents when they got older. However, one of my grandfathers was hospitalized and passed away soon afterwards, but by then I was already doing this job, so I was unable to be there when he passed. I went to see him as soon as work ended late that night, but it was already too late. I’ve regretted that ever since. So, I really wanted to directly meet and talk to people who do this kind of work.
Itou: Is that what happened. I see.
Aiba: Those 10 people that come every day, how did they wind up coming here?
Itou: For many of them, their family members had been looking for a place that could take them during the day. Also, in the case here, though it’s a bit complicated to explain, a nursing care insurance system was recently created, which has caused a lot of nursing offices/businesses to start up. However, what’s happening is that more and more patients with less severe symptoms are using their nursing insurance, and those patients with more severe conditions are being kicked out. Those elderly people sometimes suddenly start yelling loudly or swinging their canes around, and so they are told that they can’t stay with the other patients and they lose their places.
Aiba: I see. And so that’s the case with many of the people here?
Itou: Yes.
Aiba: Ehh. What made you decide to open this facility, Itou-san?
Itou: Oh, that was to create a place, my own place, where I belong. I never really fit in at my old workplace.
Aiba: That’s how you felt? When you were younger?
Itou: Yes, when I was younger.
Aiba: So for you, it’s not about the advantages and disadvantages, but this place is really like your life’s purpose.
Itou: Yes. It’s a very comfortable place to me as well.
Aiba: What is the most fun thing about it? Or rather, what gives you fulfillment?
Itou: Being pressed/pressured by the everyday. Not in the way most people think, like being under a time crunch or something like that. More like, for example, the elderly people sometimes suddenly become ill. Many of their family members are themselves in difficult points in their lives or live on the edges of society, and they have this sense that they have to do whatever it takes to get through the day, and I’m directly involved with them in that, living life together, in a way. I grew living in a newer housing development as a child with a very “sterile” lifestyle, so my situation now, immersed in the middle of living life, is very fulfilling.
Aiba: Ehh~. But this work and lifestyle I would imagine doesn’t leave you with much time for yourself. Do you not have any complaints about that?
Itou: Not at all. Rather than worrying about my own time, the things that happen every day are so interesting and fun, that if there happens to be a movie I really want to see or a place I want to go, I just take the elderly people with me. It’s really great. For example, the way they behave when you take them someplace like Toyko, when they’ve never left this town. Those things are so much fun and I really enjoy it (lol).
Aiba: I see, you take them there. That’s great. You can feel the love/caring.
Itou: Yes. I think you can get to love and peace through nursing. Nursing is a very concrete and specific thing. I’ve always loved music, and there are often concerts that have a strong message of love or peace, those kinds of things. But, it’s difficult to achieve something concrete/tangible with that. There are some things like donating money, or gathering things for charity, but with nursing, it is very easy to see how you are specifically doing something for someone. And it’s something you can see anywhere in town.
Aiba: Have you known Katou-san for a long time?
Katou: I’ve only been here less than 4 years.
Aiba: Did you also have an interest in nursing care before, Katou-san?
Katou: I went to a school for nursing care. I had played music for many years, but my parents wouldn’t let me go to Tokyo just for music, so I said, “I’m going to do nursing” and went to Tokyo, and didn’t study a bit of nursing (lol).
Aiba: Ah~ I see.
Katou: I did that for 3 years plus one year of unemployment, and contributed to Japan’s economy while depending on my parents for money (lol). I was really a good-for-nothing, but couldn’t work. I couldn’t fit in at a regular office/company. I was pushed away by society and had a lot of setbacks, wandering around aimlessly until I arrived at this place.
Itou: Both of his parents passed away and he went to live with his 93 year-old grandfather. His grandfather did his laundry and cooked for him. He wasn’t taking care of his grandfather, but was being taken care of by him. That’s the live he had.
Katou: He was a bit hard of hearing from his age, but was still able to do a lot of things despite that, so it was fine.
Aiba: Ehh~ So because of that environment, it made you feel like this time you wanted to care for the elderly?
Katou: I don’t really feel like I’m taking care of them though. If I were to put it into words, it’s more like we’re living together. As we all go through life, we come up against things where we fell, “Ah, I just can’t get this to work,” and that’s true of everyone, the elderly, me, and the disabled. The situations are different, but all have that same feeling, so in that sense, we’re not that different. So if someone needs help, we feel like we should help. Each of us stumble through life, but together we can get through it. That’s how it feels. I really feel like I’m just here with my comrades.
Itou: That’s why it’s a wasted chance if you just easily send your elderly relatives to a home. There are many young people who are being smothered/stifled by the present society’s values, but if they were to meet and talk with some of the elderly, I’m sure they would feel much better.
Aiba: Then a great cycle would be started. Around and around. It’s a matter of whether people realize that or not.
Katou: Nursing care is not always so fun, but just by doing it, your perception and values definitely change.
Aiba: Are there people that live here full-time as well?
Itou: This facility is just for people to come during the day, and they go home at night. But, there are some people that can’t go home, so those people stay with me at a different place.
Aiba: I see. This place is just during the day. I thought there were people who were just always here.
Katou: Of the 20 or so people that come here throughout the month, less than half of them stay overnight. After all, everyone wants to stay at their homes like they always have. Having to go to a facility is often due to circumstances outside of that person’s control, so no one is coming here because they want to. They come here because they have no other option.
Aiba: I see.
Katou: It’s rare to see people in a nursing facility because they themselves said “I want to go to a facility!”
Itou: Aiba-san, you said earlier that your grandfather passed away in the hospital. We also think that it’s best for people to be with their families. Everyone would like to be living their lives into old age and just suddenly die, but it doesn’t always happen that way. I really would like to make people aware of this one thing in particular: that dementia winds up affecting many elderly people, undoubtedly. If you live a long time. And if they catch a cold or get pneumonia, they are certainly hospitalized. But, if they have dementia, they try to leave the hospital. They don’t understand why they are there. So the hospitals counteract that by restraining them to the beds, or giving them medications to sedate and immobilize them, and it’s not uncommon for people to die in that condition.
Aiba: That’s so sad.
Itou: It is sad, but it’s getting to be the common practice. But no one thinks about things like this.
Aiba: At times like that, it’s really the family that needs to be the support, isn’t it?
Itou: Yes, it’s great if it’s the family. But nowadays family bonds are getting weaker, so at times like that, we are there to support them as well.
Katou: Families are often able to do better if they get a little bit of help. But many day service centers have a fixed schedule, like for example, picking them up at 8:30am and dropping them off at home at 3:30pm. But then for the family members that work and would need to pick them up at 7:30 in order to have the same lifestyle they’ve always had, they often aren’t able to fill that time gap, and so eventually decide to put their relative in a nursing home/facility. It’s not uncommon for this sort of thing to happen.
Itou: So even though this country is thriving, it’s still difficult for most people to die while still living their regular lives. That’s what I thought when I worked at a nursing home. Humans really do become more interesting after they become elderly.
Aiba: I see.
Itou: Everyone becomes like the villagers of Penguin Village from “Dr Slump Arare-chan” (lol). We often get word an elderly man is coming to our place after having been turned down by another facility. It’s like the appearance of a new character, like King Niko-chan coming to visit the Penguin Village, and it’s always very exciting (lol).
Aiba: Oh, you get excited for it (lol).
Itou: It’s funny, isn’t it (lol)?
Aiba: That’s a new way of looking at it. I never knew about all of this. The way a family’s endurance is getting weaker, and is getting exhausted by this. It’s sad.
Katou: But, depending on how you work with them, you can bring families that became separated because of nursing care back together through nursing care. We have stories like that too. We have an old grandmother here like that. She was kicked out of the mental hospital, which is often considered the last resort for patients like this.
Aiba: The last resort?
Katou: She was unable to be cared for anywhere else, and eventually wound up being placed in the dementia ward of a mental hospital. But then she was doing things like hitting her front teeth hard enough to break them, and so was kicked out. She came here because she had no other place to go, but here she was able to reconnect with her family, and they in turn were able to start working better with her, and the family overall came together as one. Things that been frayed came together one by one, and things really can change.
Itou: Nursing care connects people together. It’s its own community. I’ve come to understand that very well now, but it was only after I started this place that I realized it.
Katou: I don’t think the world of nursing care is a specialty; it’s really more about how you connect and build relationships with people. So we try to rebuild those connections. It’s about the connections more than the person themselves. That person’s lifestyle is made up of many different things, so having a “place” like this important. It’s best for them to continue living in an environment and place that they are used to.
Aiba: I’ve been making a big mistake. I thought that the next step after this place would be a big facility like a nursing home, but the system is actually totally different.
Itou: Yes, it’s different.
Aiba: What do you pay most attention to? When you interact with an elderly person.
Itou: I try to be as natural as possible. By natural, I mean I try to show my emotions as honestly as possible.
Aiba: So you act mad when you are mad.
Itou: Of course (lol). Like, “What are you doing~!” (lol). Because, they sometimes will suddenly slap/hit you. And then say, “I’m not doing anything.”
Katou: About 3 times a week I become a son to one of the grandmothers here, and she often yells, “You need to cut that out!” at me. I’m always saying, “I’m sorry.” But I won’t tell her, “I’m not your son.” After all, that grandmother deep down has a reason she is acting this way, and her message and history is wrapped up with it. But I like all the noise. I prefer the getting yelled at over just keeping the relationship to the work only.
Itou: Nursing care that treats the patients like customers continues even after the nursing care insurance system started, and the tendency to think “Patients are customers. You can’t call them ‘Grandpa, Grandma’, you should call them Mr./Mrs. ___” is still very deep-rooted. But if you do that, then of course you won’t be able to build a good relationship with them, don’t you think?
Aiba: Is that only in Japan? Or are facilities overseas also like this?
Itou: It’s probably even more so the case overseas than here. The culture there places more respect on the individual. But Japan has a culture that places much more emphasis on the community and working together. And then trying to say Mr. ___, Mrs. ___, emphasizing the individual once someone gets to be elderly, I think that would really break them.
Katou: It is not as though things always get better as you get older. But with that system, they tell 95 year-old grandfathers, “Please keep being well.” They’ve lived until the age of 95 already, that in itself is well enough. So rather than that, I want to make a path for them so they can age gradually one step at a time.
Aiba: It’s a natural process after all.
Katou: Yes, it’s not a disease or illness. When you reach 80 or 90 years-old, you aren’t able to move as easily and your cognition also slows down. That’s not a disease, that’s part of aging. Aging is something that can’t be medically treated, so the best thing is to be with and support them.
Aiba: It’s not about giving or receiving services.
Itou: No, it’s not.
Aiba: I really do like places where lots of people gather together. That’s why I often watch the documentaries they air late at night on NHK about places that take in juvenile delinquents and that process. I always think how heart-warming it is.
Katou: A place where people gather is great, and lots of places do gather people together. But here, not all of the elderly people are healthy, and some do isolate themselves up in the mountains. And some do stray and drop out. So I want to make this place one where people just naturally come, and we all spend time together. A place where people naturally gather, rather than be gathered there by someone, is better.
Itou: I agree. A place where people naturally gather is better.
Katou: That’s why we’ve never brought people here. They just come here. Many people wound up here through word of mouth.
Aiba: What are your goals for this place as you continue into the future?
Itou: I want to make it an open place where anyone can come. I think that places that are exclusive/closed off, while they may seem great to start, they usually wind up becoming not so good.
Katou: That’s why here, to keep the place open, we just leave the front door open. If people go out, then they go out, and we follow behind them. While the elderly people are puzzling over how to go home, we are puzzling over how to bring them back (lol). We work with them, and are manipulated by them. But I think those connections and relationship are very important. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. It’s become very prosperous, but in some ways is a poor country. I think it’s something that people have in them, and through even a place like this, connecting with all kinds of people and living like human beings, perhaps something will change.
Aiba: I see. It’s become prosperous, but it feels like there is a hole where something is missing.
Itou: Yes, exactly. When you attend someone who is dying in their home setting, it is just as emotional as when a child is born. I mean, when Katou’s wife worked here, an elderly lady passed away here, and she was cleaning her body. She passed away here with everyone watching over her. Death is very sad, but even while crying, she was smiling. She said, “I’m so glad for you, grandma, that you were able to pass away here.” She was crying but smiling too. It was a very strange/wonderful sight, that was.
Aiba: Ehh~
Itou: That’s why we try to bring them back to their own lifestyles/environments when they are dying. Even just that can change the way the younger generations view things.
Aiba: Since they aren’t living together anymore.
Itou: We think that being able to live freely is good and very important. Today’s culture is today’s culture. So, brining all this to someone’s house would be difficult. But, I would like to at least have it in their town. And I want it to be an open place. A place where I could drop by to see how my elderly relatives are doing if they’re hospitalized, rather than not knowing how they are. And if that place is warm and inviting, then that’s even better.
Aiba: Yes. It’s not like you’re trying to make things how they used to be in the past.
Itou: We’re not. It’s a completely different culture now.
Katou: Everyone at the time that they die, are just themselves. It’s not about their dementia, or their disabilities, everyone has the right to live in their own way as themselves right up to when they die.
Aiba: My family runs a Chinese restaurant, and right after I was born, my parents had to leave to do training for it, so I was left in the care of my paternal grandparents. Until I started elementary school, I had never met my parents. But, I actually think it was good in some ways. I was told a lot of things I thought were annoying back then, like caring for plants, but after becoming an adult, I realized that those things were right. They always told me not to live life just looking at the losses and gains. My grandparents said just being able to die with a smile is enough. There may be a lot of things you will have to do to make it that way, and probably some things that you will have to make your own way through to get to that kind of environment in the end. I kind of had a vague idea of what that means, but today has made me think about it a little more deeply. Thank you so much. I had a lot of fun.
After having such a full and busy time, Aiba’s next stop was for lunch. Since they had come to Kisarazu, they went to a nearby restaurant to eat clams that the region is known for, in a dish fittingly called the clam meal.
They headed to the next stop with full stomachs. But, before that, since they had a little bit of extra time, they stopped by the nearby Yatsurugi Hachiman Shrine to give thanks for the wonderful encounters they had, and to pray for the wonderful encounters still to come on this trip. Upon looking at the shrine’s name carved in a stone monument, Aiba remarked, “There are two 8 (Kanji), that’s good luck.” While waiting to receive the seal from the shrine office, he went to pray. And then, his eyes were drawn to the fortunes that were in a vending machine-like box. When Aiba tried it, no fortune came out even though he had put in the money!
And then, one of the local people who had been watching nearby said, “Umm… that machine gets stuck about once every 5 times…” In a way, getting that one time may have been a sign of his good luck?! Next, the woman that talked to them tried the machine as well, and the fortune came out!... but wasn’t that supposed to be the one that Aiba was going to get? She opened it and saw it was “medium good luck,” to which Aiba said, “I’ll let you have the medium good luck (lol)”
After receiving the seal, the group went back to the car. Their next destination was Kawasaki City in Kanagawa Prefecture. They met up with the net key person at a hotel near Musashi Kosugi Station.
And off to the next part, located here!
Masterpost is here :D
Thanks for coming by!
This weekend we'll be traveling with Aiba-chan kinda all over the place, to take a look at the nursing care and social services of Japan (or at least, what it looked like in 2010...). I thought this trip was really fascinating, because this isn't something that's usually talked about, and also because it was interesting to hear why Aiba-chan decided to do this as his theme.
And without further ado, off we go! :D
Aiba Masaki and Japan’s Social Services and Nursing Care
Chiba/Kanagawa/Kyoto/Nara
Aiba Masaki’s journey started in his own home prefecture of Chiba. What does he want to see? For the theme of this trip, Aiba chose social services and nursing case, something he is interested in. Why did Aiba choose this theme? That answer became clear at the start of his trip.
The large role of Japan’s retirement homes
Fuji-mi Street is on the west side of Kisarazu Station. Just as its name says, if you stand on the street, you can see Mt. Fuji far off in the distance. On a clear, bright morning, Aiba Masaki arrived in Kisarazu City in Chiba Prefecture. Right away he set off to their first stop, a retirement home called “Idobata Genki.” What is a retirement home to begin with? And how is it different from a public elderly day service center? With this and many other “?” in mind, they decided to just visit one of these places. They arrived at Honmachi Shopping District, where many local people gather. In a lane off the main street, there is a building that looks like a regular house at first glance. That was Idobata Genki.
“Ojamashima-su.” (TN: standard greeting when entering someone else’s home). The building made them feel like they were visiting their relatives’ house. They were first shown to the second floor to meet with the board director, Itou Hideki-san (37 years-old), and facility director, Katou Masahiro-san (30 years-old). Here their conversation is inserted, as unedited as possible. Though it is a bit long, please give it a read, as it is deeply significant in providing one of the answers for the start of this journey.
Aiba: How many people do you have here right now?
Itou: Well, every day about 10 elderly people with dementia come. One of the distinct things about this place is that we didn’t want the elderly people to come here just to be something to be taken care of. We also have disabled or mentally handicapped people with no other local place to go come here as well, and both groups help take care of each other. Everyone works together and helps each other out here.
Aiba: Wow, amazing. My parents were both busy when I was little, so I was pretty much raised by my grandparents. And it was also some kind of fate/destiny that I had a classmate in elementary school who had a (physical) handicap, and I was put in charge of helping them out. Because I had that experience, I had always wanted to take care of my grandparents when they got older. However, one of my grandfathers was hospitalized and passed away soon afterwards, but by then I was already doing this job, so I was unable to be there when he passed. I went to see him as soon as work ended late that night, but it was already too late. I’ve regretted that ever since. So, I really wanted to directly meet and talk to people who do this kind of work.
Itou: Is that what happened. I see.
Aiba: Those 10 people that come every day, how did they wind up coming here?
Itou: For many of them, their family members had been looking for a place that could take them during the day. Also, in the case here, though it’s a bit complicated to explain, a nursing care insurance system was recently created, which has caused a lot of nursing offices/businesses to start up. However, what’s happening is that more and more patients with less severe symptoms are using their nursing insurance, and those patients with more severe conditions are being kicked out. Those elderly people sometimes suddenly start yelling loudly or swinging their canes around, and so they are told that they can’t stay with the other patients and they lose their places.
Aiba: I see. And so that’s the case with many of the people here?
Itou: Yes.
Aiba: Ehh. What made you decide to open this facility, Itou-san?
Itou: Oh, that was to create a place, my own place, where I belong. I never really fit in at my old workplace.
Aiba: That’s how you felt? When you were younger?
Itou: Yes, when I was younger.
Aiba: So for you, it’s not about the advantages and disadvantages, but this place is really like your life’s purpose.
Itou: Yes. It’s a very comfortable place to me as well.
Aiba: What is the most fun thing about it? Or rather, what gives you fulfillment?
Itou: Being pressed/pressured by the everyday. Not in the way most people think, like being under a time crunch or something like that. More like, for example, the elderly people sometimes suddenly become ill. Many of their family members are themselves in difficult points in their lives or live on the edges of society, and they have this sense that they have to do whatever it takes to get through the day, and I’m directly involved with them in that, living life together, in a way. I grew living in a newer housing development as a child with a very “sterile” lifestyle, so my situation now, immersed in the middle of living life, is very fulfilling.
Aiba: Ehh~. But this work and lifestyle I would imagine doesn’t leave you with much time for yourself. Do you not have any complaints about that?
Itou: Not at all. Rather than worrying about my own time, the things that happen every day are so interesting and fun, that if there happens to be a movie I really want to see or a place I want to go, I just take the elderly people with me. It’s really great. For example, the way they behave when you take them someplace like Toyko, when they’ve never left this town. Those things are so much fun and I really enjoy it (lol).
Aiba: I see, you take them there. That’s great. You can feel the love/caring.
Itou: Yes. I think you can get to love and peace through nursing. Nursing is a very concrete and specific thing. I’ve always loved music, and there are often concerts that have a strong message of love or peace, those kinds of things. But, it’s difficult to achieve something concrete/tangible with that. There are some things like donating money, or gathering things for charity, but with nursing, it is very easy to see how you are specifically doing something for someone. And it’s something you can see anywhere in town.
Aiba: Have you known Katou-san for a long time?
Katou: I’ve only been here less than 4 years.
Aiba: Did you also have an interest in nursing care before, Katou-san?
Katou: I went to a school for nursing care. I had played music for many years, but my parents wouldn’t let me go to Tokyo just for music, so I said, “I’m going to do nursing” and went to Tokyo, and didn’t study a bit of nursing (lol).
Aiba: Ah~ I see.
Katou: I did that for 3 years plus one year of unemployment, and contributed to Japan’s economy while depending on my parents for money (lol). I was really a good-for-nothing, but couldn’t work. I couldn’t fit in at a regular office/company. I was pushed away by society and had a lot of setbacks, wandering around aimlessly until I arrived at this place.
Itou: Both of his parents passed away and he went to live with his 93 year-old grandfather. His grandfather did his laundry and cooked for him. He wasn’t taking care of his grandfather, but was being taken care of by him. That’s the live he had.
Katou: He was a bit hard of hearing from his age, but was still able to do a lot of things despite that, so it was fine.
Aiba: Ehh~ So because of that environment, it made you feel like this time you wanted to care for the elderly?
Katou: I don’t really feel like I’m taking care of them though. If I were to put it into words, it’s more like we’re living together. As we all go through life, we come up against things where we fell, “Ah, I just can’t get this to work,” and that’s true of everyone, the elderly, me, and the disabled. The situations are different, but all have that same feeling, so in that sense, we’re not that different. So if someone needs help, we feel like we should help. Each of us stumble through life, but together we can get through it. That’s how it feels. I really feel like I’m just here with my comrades.
Itou: That’s why it’s a wasted chance if you just easily send your elderly relatives to a home. There are many young people who are being smothered/stifled by the present society’s values, but if they were to meet and talk with some of the elderly, I’m sure they would feel much better.
Aiba: Then a great cycle would be started. Around and around. It’s a matter of whether people realize that or not.
Katou: Nursing care is not always so fun, but just by doing it, your perception and values definitely change.
Aiba: Are there people that live here full-time as well?
Itou: This facility is just for people to come during the day, and they go home at night. But, there are some people that can’t go home, so those people stay with me at a different place.
Aiba: I see. This place is just during the day. I thought there were people who were just always here.
Katou: Of the 20 or so people that come here throughout the month, less than half of them stay overnight. After all, everyone wants to stay at their homes like they always have. Having to go to a facility is often due to circumstances outside of that person’s control, so no one is coming here because they want to. They come here because they have no other option.
Aiba: I see.
Katou: It’s rare to see people in a nursing facility because they themselves said “I want to go to a facility!”
Itou: Aiba-san, you said earlier that your grandfather passed away in the hospital. We also think that it’s best for people to be with their families. Everyone would like to be living their lives into old age and just suddenly die, but it doesn’t always happen that way. I really would like to make people aware of this one thing in particular: that dementia winds up affecting many elderly people, undoubtedly. If you live a long time. And if they catch a cold or get pneumonia, they are certainly hospitalized. But, if they have dementia, they try to leave the hospital. They don’t understand why they are there. So the hospitals counteract that by restraining them to the beds, or giving them medications to sedate and immobilize them, and it’s not uncommon for people to die in that condition.
Aiba: That’s so sad.
Itou: It is sad, but it’s getting to be the common practice. But no one thinks about things like this.
Aiba: At times like that, it’s really the family that needs to be the support, isn’t it?
Itou: Yes, it’s great if it’s the family. But nowadays family bonds are getting weaker, so at times like that, we are there to support them as well.
Katou: Families are often able to do better if they get a little bit of help. But many day service centers have a fixed schedule, like for example, picking them up at 8:30am and dropping them off at home at 3:30pm. But then for the family members that work and would need to pick them up at 7:30 in order to have the same lifestyle they’ve always had, they often aren’t able to fill that time gap, and so eventually decide to put their relative in a nursing home/facility. It’s not uncommon for this sort of thing to happen.
Itou: So even though this country is thriving, it’s still difficult for most people to die while still living their regular lives. That’s what I thought when I worked at a nursing home. Humans really do become more interesting after they become elderly.
Aiba: I see.
Itou: Everyone becomes like the villagers of Penguin Village from “Dr Slump Arare-chan” (lol). We often get word an elderly man is coming to our place after having been turned down by another facility. It’s like the appearance of a new character, like King Niko-chan coming to visit the Penguin Village, and it’s always very exciting (lol).
Aiba: Oh, you get excited for it (lol).
Itou: It’s funny, isn’t it (lol)?
Aiba: That’s a new way of looking at it. I never knew about all of this. The way a family’s endurance is getting weaker, and is getting exhausted by this. It’s sad.
Katou: But, depending on how you work with them, you can bring families that became separated because of nursing care back together through nursing care. We have stories like that too. We have an old grandmother here like that. She was kicked out of the mental hospital, which is often considered the last resort for patients like this.
Aiba: The last resort?
Katou: She was unable to be cared for anywhere else, and eventually wound up being placed in the dementia ward of a mental hospital. But then she was doing things like hitting her front teeth hard enough to break them, and so was kicked out. She came here because she had no other place to go, but here she was able to reconnect with her family, and they in turn were able to start working better with her, and the family overall came together as one. Things that been frayed came together one by one, and things really can change.
Itou: Nursing care connects people together. It’s its own community. I’ve come to understand that very well now, but it was only after I started this place that I realized it.
Katou: I don’t think the world of nursing care is a specialty; it’s really more about how you connect and build relationships with people. So we try to rebuild those connections. It’s about the connections more than the person themselves. That person’s lifestyle is made up of many different things, so having a “place” like this important. It’s best for them to continue living in an environment and place that they are used to.
Aiba: I’ve been making a big mistake. I thought that the next step after this place would be a big facility like a nursing home, but the system is actually totally different.
Itou: Yes, it’s different.
Aiba: What do you pay most attention to? When you interact with an elderly person.
Itou: I try to be as natural as possible. By natural, I mean I try to show my emotions as honestly as possible.
Aiba: So you act mad when you are mad.
Itou: Of course (lol). Like, “What are you doing~!” (lol). Because, they sometimes will suddenly slap/hit you. And then say, “I’m not doing anything.”
Katou: About 3 times a week I become a son to one of the grandmothers here, and she often yells, “You need to cut that out!” at me. I’m always saying, “I’m sorry.” But I won’t tell her, “I’m not your son.” After all, that grandmother deep down has a reason she is acting this way, and her message and history is wrapped up with it. But I like all the noise. I prefer the getting yelled at over just keeping the relationship to the work only.
Itou: Nursing care that treats the patients like customers continues even after the nursing care insurance system started, and the tendency to think “Patients are customers. You can’t call them ‘Grandpa, Grandma’, you should call them Mr./Mrs. ___” is still very deep-rooted. But if you do that, then of course you won’t be able to build a good relationship with them, don’t you think?
Aiba: Is that only in Japan? Or are facilities overseas also like this?
Itou: It’s probably even more so the case overseas than here. The culture there places more respect on the individual. But Japan has a culture that places much more emphasis on the community and working together. And then trying to say Mr. ___, Mrs. ___, emphasizing the individual once someone gets to be elderly, I think that would really break them.
Katou: It is not as though things always get better as you get older. But with that system, they tell 95 year-old grandfathers, “Please keep being well.” They’ve lived until the age of 95 already, that in itself is well enough. So rather than that, I want to make a path for them so they can age gradually one step at a time.
Aiba: It’s a natural process after all.
Katou: Yes, it’s not a disease or illness. When you reach 80 or 90 years-old, you aren’t able to move as easily and your cognition also slows down. That’s not a disease, that’s part of aging. Aging is something that can’t be medically treated, so the best thing is to be with and support them.
Aiba: It’s not about giving or receiving services.
Itou: No, it’s not.
Aiba: I really do like places where lots of people gather together. That’s why I often watch the documentaries they air late at night on NHK about places that take in juvenile delinquents and that process. I always think how heart-warming it is.
Katou: A place where people gather is great, and lots of places do gather people together. But here, not all of the elderly people are healthy, and some do isolate themselves up in the mountains. And some do stray and drop out. So I want to make this place one where people just naturally come, and we all spend time together. A place where people naturally gather, rather than be gathered there by someone, is better.
Itou: I agree. A place where people naturally gather is better.
Katou: That’s why we’ve never brought people here. They just come here. Many people wound up here through word of mouth.
Aiba: What are your goals for this place as you continue into the future?
Itou: I want to make it an open place where anyone can come. I think that places that are exclusive/closed off, while they may seem great to start, they usually wind up becoming not so good.
Katou: That’s why here, to keep the place open, we just leave the front door open. If people go out, then they go out, and we follow behind them. While the elderly people are puzzling over how to go home, we are puzzling over how to bring them back (lol). We work with them, and are manipulated by them. But I think those connections and relationship are very important. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. It’s become very prosperous, but in some ways is a poor country. I think it’s something that people have in them, and through even a place like this, connecting with all kinds of people and living like human beings, perhaps something will change.
Aiba: I see. It’s become prosperous, but it feels like there is a hole where something is missing.
Itou: Yes, exactly. When you attend someone who is dying in their home setting, it is just as emotional as when a child is born. I mean, when Katou’s wife worked here, an elderly lady passed away here, and she was cleaning her body. She passed away here with everyone watching over her. Death is very sad, but even while crying, she was smiling. She said, “I’m so glad for you, grandma, that you were able to pass away here.” She was crying but smiling too. It was a very strange/wonderful sight, that was.
Aiba: Ehh~
Itou: That’s why we try to bring them back to their own lifestyles/environments when they are dying. Even just that can change the way the younger generations view things.
Aiba: Since they aren’t living together anymore.
Itou: We think that being able to live freely is good and very important. Today’s culture is today’s culture. So, brining all this to someone’s house would be difficult. But, I would like to at least have it in their town. And I want it to be an open place. A place where I could drop by to see how my elderly relatives are doing if they’re hospitalized, rather than not knowing how they are. And if that place is warm and inviting, then that’s even better.
Aiba: Yes. It’s not like you’re trying to make things how they used to be in the past.
Itou: We’re not. It’s a completely different culture now.
Katou: Everyone at the time that they die, are just themselves. It’s not about their dementia, or their disabilities, everyone has the right to live in their own way as themselves right up to when they die.
Aiba: My family runs a Chinese restaurant, and right after I was born, my parents had to leave to do training for it, so I was left in the care of my paternal grandparents. Until I started elementary school, I had never met my parents. But, I actually think it was good in some ways. I was told a lot of things I thought were annoying back then, like caring for plants, but after becoming an adult, I realized that those things were right. They always told me not to live life just looking at the losses and gains. My grandparents said just being able to die with a smile is enough. There may be a lot of things you will have to do to make it that way, and probably some things that you will have to make your own way through to get to that kind of environment in the end. I kind of had a vague idea of what that means, but today has made me think about it a little more deeply. Thank you so much. I had a lot of fun.
After having such a full and busy time, Aiba’s next stop was for lunch. Since they had come to Kisarazu, they went to a nearby restaurant to eat clams that the region is known for, in a dish fittingly called the clam meal.
They headed to the next stop with full stomachs. But, before that, since they had a little bit of extra time, they stopped by the nearby Yatsurugi Hachiman Shrine to give thanks for the wonderful encounters they had, and to pray for the wonderful encounters still to come on this trip. Upon looking at the shrine’s name carved in a stone monument, Aiba remarked, “There are two 8 (Kanji), that’s good luck.” While waiting to receive the seal from the shrine office, he went to pray. And then, his eyes were drawn to the fortunes that were in a vending machine-like box. When Aiba tried it, no fortune came out even though he had put in the money!
And then, one of the local people who had been watching nearby said, “Umm… that machine gets stuck about once every 5 times…” In a way, getting that one time may have been a sign of his good luck?! Next, the woman that talked to them tried the machine as well, and the fortune came out!... but wasn’t that supposed to be the one that Aiba was going to get? She opened it and saw it was “medium good luck,” to which Aiba said, “I’ll let you have the medium good luck (lol)”
After receiving the seal, the group went back to the car. Their next destination was Kawasaki City in Kanagawa Prefecture. They met up with the net key person at a hotel near Musashi Kosugi Station.
And off to the next part, located here!
Masterpost is here :D
Thanks for coming by!