Firms may have to assess mental health in Japan

Main Category: Mental Health
Article Date: 04 May 2004 - 0:00 PDT


The Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry is considering revising the Industrial Safety and Health Law to require companies to assess the mental health of their employees in a bid to urge companies to be sensitive to mental health problems, sources said.

The ministry intends to draft the bill by summer and submit it during the next ordinary Diet session.

According to the sources, under the revision, the ministry would like managers at workplaces and company doctors to know the condition of their employees' mental health as a result of the diagnoses.

The Japanese government has provided only guidelines on worker mental health. With about 8,000 suicides per year by employees across the country, the ministry decided to launch efforts to address mental health problems.

The current law stipulates that employers should be considerate of employees' health conditions.

The ministry intends to require employers to assess employees' mental and physical stress and take steps to address it.

Under the current law, companies are obliged to provide physical checkups for employees and hear opinions from company doctors and deal with the situation appropriately. But in many cases employees feel it is difficult to consult with doctors about mental health during companies' medical examinations.

In the process of drafting the bill, the ministry therefore intends to make it easier for employees to receive treatment from medical specialists when they feel mentally stressed. If an employee shows his or her company a medical assessment by a psychiatrist outside the company, for example, the company would be required to take proper measures for the employee.

The government will not likely impose penalties on companies in violation of the revised law. But the ministry believes the revision could be effective in urging companies to address mental health problems of employees. This would be particularly so if employees suffering from mental diseases were able to sue employers for negligence under the revised law.

There remain difficult problems such as how to treat different levels of stress and how to distinguish stress caused by factors at home from that caused by work. The ministry has set up a 10-member panel comprised of experts, including doctors, to discuss the problems.

In August 2000, the then Labor Ministry, in its guidelines for worker mental health, asked companies to approve requests for mental health consultations from employees and improve working conditions.

But the number of suicides for workers has remained at 8,000 in recent years and hit 8,215 in 2002.

Written by Yomiuri Shimbun

Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20040504wo02.htm

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