AOMORI: In connection with the murder of one patient by another at a hospital in the city of Hachinohe in Japan’s Aomori prefecture in March 2023, prefectural police on Feb 14 arrested two doctors on suspicion of concealing the cause of the victim’s death.
The two arrested doctors are brothers. The older brother, Takashi Ishiyama, 61, was the director of the hospital at the time and the younger brother, Tetsu Ishiyama, 60, was the primary doctor for the murdered patient.
The hospital provided the victim’s family with a death certificate stating the cause of death to have been pneumonia. The police are investigating the case on suspicion that the pair played a key role in the concealment of the murder.
The murder took place at the Michinoku Memorial Hospital in the city late at night on March 12, 2023.
Seietsu Takahashi, 73, was stabbed in the face many times with a toothbrush handle by a then 59-year-old man who had been hospitalised in the same room due to alcohol addiction and other reasons.
Takahashi then received treatment in a different room, but was confirmed dead at 10.10am on March 13. The assailant was sentenced to 17 years in prison for murder, and the sentence has been finalised.
According to investigative sources, the Ishiyama brothers allegedly conspired to conceal the murder while knowing Takahashi had been killed in the hospital.
They reportedly did not report the murder to the prefectural police and concealed the man who had killed Takahashi by providing the decedent’s family with a death certificate containing the false cause of death on March 13, 2023.
Concerning his injuries, the hospital told the family that he had fallen.
However, the police learnt of the incident because another hospital official who had suspicions about the hospital’s handling of the matter reported it to the police at about 6pm the same day.
As a result of an autopsy of the body, the cause of death was found to have been injuries to his head and face.
In April 2023, the police searched the hospital on suspicion of charges including falsifying a medical certificate in violation of the Penal Code.
Takashi currently serves as the head director of the Kyorinkai medical corporation, which operates hospitals and is headquartered in Meguro Ward, Tokyo. - The Japan News/ANN
