Man Caught on Video Repeatedly Hitting His Helpless Elderly Father Who Has Dementia

International   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Aug 22, 2017   |   11:10AM   |   Beijing, China

In another horrifying case of elder abuse, a Chinese man was caught on video repeatedly hitting his elderly father in a hospital bed.

The Daily Mail reports police in China took the man in for questioning after someone caught the abuse on video.

The elderly man, Mr. Wang, 86, of Shanghai, is believed to have dementia, and his children are struggling to pay for his medical bills, according to the report. The financial burden could be linked to the abuse. Money often is a driving factor in such cases.

The video, taken by an anonymous observer, shows the son repeatedly hitting Wang in his hospital bed. Wang can be heard crying for help as his son says, “Why did you cause trouble?” in reference to an incident when Wang threw his food on the ground.

The anonymous observer said they witnessed the abuse several times, and the son once threatened to “punish” his father “properly” when he is released from the hospital. Other patients and family members of patients said they also saw the son beating his father.

“One time, Mr Wang was crossing his legs while sitting on a chair, his son kicked his legs and later strapped him to a bed,” a fellow patient told reporters.

Wang was admitted to the Shanghai No. 4 People’s Hospital on Aug. 11 in China, so the video must have been taken recently. Doctors said Wang had bruises on his face and a fracture on his left arm several days after he was admitted, but they could not confirm that the injuries were the result of abuse.

The son, who is not named in reports, appears to have admitted to the abuse. He told The Paper in China that he hit his father because he misbehaved.

The horrifying report comes just a month after a health care worker in Ottawa, Canada was caught on video punching a helpless elderly man who has Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. A similar case of elder abuse was caught on film in 2013 in Peterborough, Canada.

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Many believe elder abuse is a symptom of a more widespread cultural crisis – the devaluing of human lives. It comes in many forms, including abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg, the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, linked elder abuse to the growing push for euthanasia and assisted suicide all across the world. In the Netherlands where euthanasia is legal, he said one study found that there were 431 hastened deaths without explicit request and 1693 unreported assisted deaths in 2015 in the Netherlands.

Schadenberg wrote in July:

I am convinced that the dehumanizing attitude that has led to the scourge of elder abuse in has also led to de-stigmatizing the concept of doctors killing patients by euthanasia.

The concept that euthanasia or assisted suicide can be administered without abuse within a society that has dehumanized people living with certain conditions is naive at best.