Savage was a dual citizen of New Zealand and the United States, and worked in Shibushi, Kagoshima in Japan from August 2015 until his death in May 2017.
While an undergraduate at the Victoria University of Wellington, Savage began suffering from depression and was hospitalized for five weeks in 2012 as a result of a psychotic episode.
[2] A cardiologist at the hospital wrote in a report “To speculate, given that he was restrained for 10 days, we should consider the possibility that he developed deep vein thrombosis (DVT) at some point and this led to a pulmonary embolism” and cardiac arrest.
[7][4] As a result, Savage's family turned to the media and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT).
[4] The family also met with Toshio Hasegawa, Professor of Health Sciences at Kyorin University, who had published a book about the use of restraints in Japan.
[19] In 2021, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare published the results of an investigation they had promised into the use of restraints in Japanese hospital settings.
Yomiuri Shimbun wrote an article on 10 August, highlighting Savage's death as an example of the failure of the self-reporting component of Japan's medical accident investigation system.
[22] In June 2019, NHK, the Japanese national television station, ran a 29-minute documentary about Kelly Savage and how New Zealand psychiatric institutions care for patients without mechanical restraints.
[23] On 15 November 2017, a 28-year-old Japanese man was found dead while he was restrained in a psychiatric hospital, and it was reported in Asahi Shimbun along with a reminder about Savage's case.
[29] Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare annually surveys psychiatric hospitals to determine how many patients are being restrained or kept in solitary confinement.
The UPR report included concerns from New Zealand and several other countries about Japan's psychiatric care system and their treatment of people with disabilities.