Sayonara Japan, leaving with great memories and new friends.

05 March 2010

The trip is coming to an end. Jeff has gone to Seoul, Stephen has left to get back for his anniversary tomorrow in Sydney and I leave for Dubai in the morning.

It’s my last evening in Tokyo after returning from the small coastal town of Ofunato in northern Honshu. The journey took about 5 hours door to door but was worth it to see a range of nursing and dementia facilities developed over 20 years by Doctor Kikawado and his team.

Yet again we were treated to facilities that seemed to have deep ingrained philosophies of care which affected everything from the building design to the service. I saw 6 facilities in total including 3 "group" homes which have been the Japanese response to the growing number of older people with dementia care needs.

There is currently a review of this type of accommodation over the next 2 years, not least because a policy of 9 bedroom homes set in neighbourhood locations has been an expensive solution. 10,000 of these homes have been built in the country over the last decade or so but staffing for 9 only can be inflexible and costly. Interesting parallels with the staffing and support debates back home.

Signing off