Japan Press Weekly

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2017 May 31 - June 6 [LABOR]

Trainee doctor’s suicide recognized as caused from overwork

A labor law enforcement office in Niigata on May 31 acknowledged that the suicide of a 37-year-old female trainee doctor who worked at the city’s general hospital had been caused by extremely long working hours.

Kimoto Aya started working as an intern at the hospital in April 2015, and was sometimes forced to work 251 hours of overtime a month. Half a year later, she suffered from depression and finally killed herself in January 2016.

In August 2016, her bereaved family filed a claim for worker’s compensation for work-related death with the Niigata Labor Standards Inspection Office.

The labor law authority recognized that during the one month before her death, she worked more than 160 extra hours far beyond 100 hours, the gov’t-set standards for the official recognition of overwork-induced death.