The suicide of an obstetrics and gynecology resident physician in his mid-30s has been recognized by a Tokyo labor office as a work-related death caused by a psychological disorder that stemmed from long working hours, a lawyer representing the man's family said Wednesday.
The man, who worked at a general hospital in the nation's capital, had logged up to 208 hours of overtime in a month. The Shinagawa labor standard inspection office officially recognized the case as a work-related death on July 31.
A government labor reform panel adopted a final report in March calling for revised labor laws to cap overtime at 100 hours a month. Doctors, however, are exempt from the rules for the first five years after it takes effect, since physicians in principle cannot refuse to care for patients if requested. Hiroshi Kawahito, the lawyer for the family, said such exemptions should be retracted since they result in a failure to address and may even exacerbate karōshi, or death from overwork.