全米高齢者ケアマネジメント専門職協会（仮訳）宛書簡2003.09.03.
※「全米高齢者ケアマネジメント専門職協会」は、National Association of Professional
Geriatric Care Managers の日本語仮訳です。
Dear Mr. Steven M. Barlam( President of National Association of Professional
Geriatric Care Managers),
We are sending our first letter to your Association.
Our association is titled “National Association of Interdependent, Fair and
Neutral Care Managers in Japan”, and this is one of the groups of
professional geriatric care managers in Japan.
In Japan, “Long-term Care Insurance” has commenced as of April 2000. With
its inception, for the first time, professional care managers are charged
with important duties on care management.
However, most of our professional care managers have to belong to industrial
groups, for example, nursing homes, hospitals, enterprises and so on,
because the allocation of government funds for the care management system is
so low. Care managers cannot obtain adequate salaries from this system
alone. As such, most professional care managers have conflicts of duty both
as employees of their companies and as professional care managers.
We regard that this state of affairs is in need of reexamination, and are
organizing a national organization for the purpose of establishing the
independence of care managers from direct care services. To proceed, we held
a national congress of professional care managers in January 2003, and in
this congress, we were able to establish our association.
More than 99 percent of Japanese care managers have provided
directly-dependent care services dependent on their companies, because of
the conditions we have mentioned above. For this reason, they cannot be
independent from the advantage of their companies which they belong to, and
this inhibits them from respecting that which is best for their clients.
By the way, Japanese government is planning to instruct the nation-wide
organization for care managers, but this movement seems to be so far from
the independent organization of care managers themselves, that this movement
has complex problems of interests among the government and various kinds of
industrial and professional parties.
We are concerned about these conditions of our country, for our aim is to
respect and advocate the opinions of the elderly and their care providers.
So we have started the social movement for improvement.
Under these circumstances, we consider that it is important to compare the
conditions of care managements internationally, and we have been researching
the world-wide cases of welfare systems. Through these tasks, we came across
the home page of your Association GCM, and we found a lot of common ideas
between us.
Our association thoroughly intends to improve the system of care management
as well as you do. As a first step, we hope to be able to exchange ideas
between your organization and ours. If you participate in an international
organization of geriatric care managers or other professions, we hope to
attend as well.
So far, our association represents a minority viewpoint in Japan, and we are
financially independent from the Japanese government. We are under strict
financial constrictions, and it may be difficult for us to visit your
country immediately. If you do not mind, could we exchange ideas by E-mails
currently, hoping that a representative from our association could attend
your conference one or two years later.
Lastly, we invite you to attend our national congress which is planned to
take place in Yokohama on October 12th and 13th this year, if the budget of
your Association permits. If it will be possible, please tell us of your
opinion by E-mail, a letter or a facsimile, so that we can let you know the
details about the schedules of the congress.
Regardless of your absence, we would like you to help us by giving some
information of yours which you get by using your wide mailing lists to allow
us to present your ideas publicly in our congress. We hope to have chances
to negotiate about this plan with you before long.
We will be looking forward to receiving your answer.
Yours sincerely,
Awakura, J. Toshitaka
Representative
National Association of Interdependent,
Fair and Neutral Care Managers in Japan