Nursing home Keyaki no Ie is seen in the city of Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Dec. 8, 2021. (Mainichi/Shinichi Anmi)

       MITO -- A former care worker at a nursing home was arrested by Ibaraki Prefectural Police on Dec. 8 on suspicion of killing a resident there by injecting him with air in July 2020.

       Suspect Megumi Akama, 35, now unemployed, was working at a nursing home in the east Japan city of Koga, Ibaraki Prefecture, at the time of the alleged murder. According to investigative sources, several suspicious deaths among the home's residents have been confirmed, and police are investigating whether they are connected. An investigation headquarters was set up at Koga Police Station on the same day as Akama's arrest.

       Akama is suspected of killing 76-year-old Setsuji Yoshida, a resident at the Keyaki no Ie nursing home, by using a syringe to inject air into an IV tube connected to a vein in his leg at around 12:30 p.m. on July 6, 2020. The investigation headquarters has not revealed how Akama has responded to the allegations.

       Yoshida's official cause of death was acute cardiovascular failure caused by an air embolism. A judicial autopsy found that a lethal amount of air had been injected into Yoshida's bloodstream. Akama's possible involvement came to light due to testimony from her colleagues that she had been acting suspiciously at the time of the incident, among other information.

       Akama is a certified nurse with experience working at hospitals, but had not been involved in medical care at Keyaki no Ie. She stopped coming to work the day after Yoshida's death, and reportedly resigned. Facility operator Yushikai Group, a medical corporation based in the neighboring Tochigi Prefecture town of Nogi, told the Mainichi Shimbun, "We are cooperating with the investigation and cannot comment."

       (Japanese original by Toru Morinaga and Minori Nagaya, Mito Bureau)

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