Cases of patients turned away by hospitals up fivefold over virus

"Cases of hospitals in Japan turning away patients on ambulance transports, mostly because they are suspected of being infected with the new coronavirus, increased more than fivefold in April from a year earlier, according to a survey by Kyodo News."

Did you mean to write a month earlier, JT?

This is what unnecessary media and internet spurred hysteria and panic causes.

as painful as it may sound, disasters really will do a number on a country's basic and emergency services. I'm really expecting that until this pandemic subsides, people can't afford to be sick that needs hospitalization. I am just thankful that other basic services such as utilities, waste management and law enforcement are still up and running. Getting through this pandemic would be exponentially tougher if basic services are down.

Other countries have 5 minute test kits. Why doesn't Japan? I figure, in Japan, it takes on average 30 to 60 minutes of lying in an ambulance waiting to find a hospital that'll take you. (i'm talking about before the China Virus started) So why not supply all ambulances with the kits? Or is it a political thing that Japan doesn't have what other countries have to battle this China Virus.

If you have mild or no symptoms, do you really want to be in a place like that? I guess nobody trusts anyone to self-isolate, wear a mask, keep social distance..

If you have mild or no symptoms, do you really want to be in a place like that? I guess nobody trusts anyone to self-isolate, wear a mask, keep social distance..

I’m pretty sure nobody is calling an ambulance to take them to emergency care if they have mild or no symptoms.

It's a pretty dire situation when thousands of people are being turned away from hospitals daily and aren’t even able to get the seen by doctors, let alone tested for the disease.

A medical professional gave me the latest on the situation yesterday.

It was stated,

‘If a patient can find a hospital without infection now they are lucky.’

‘Hospitals are shutting down A&E due to clusters WITHIN hospitals now.’

No hospital wishes to add corona patients to their inpatient numbers...

@Bububu4

"I’m pretty sure nobody is calling an ambulance to take them to emergency care if they have mild or no symptoms.

It's a pretty dire situation when thousands of people are being turned away from hospitals daily and aren’t even able to get the seen by doctors, let alone tested for the disease."

~

"...On 10 April, her friend had developed a fever and cough, but waited four days, as per the guidelines. "By then she was having trouble breathing and was dizzy from lack of oxygen," Jordain tells me. "I called the Covid hotline. They refused to help. They said if she's sick she should call an ambulance."

(Source: ~ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52466834 )

Like Sweden, Japan set its own protocol to deal with this pandemic from the very beginning. Unlike Sweden, however, Japan set its highest priority to saving lives where possible. Hence, Japan decided to test, while limited testing capabilities continues, those who need most in order to avoid the worst situations where hospitals get overwhelmed, causing more deaths of people whose lives could have been saved otherwise.

The numbers show a success to a degree.

US, where most aggressive testing are performed, shows the number of corona related deaths as 207 per million. Japan, where testing is limited, shows the number as 4 per million.

Cases of hospitals in Japan turning away patients on ambulance transports, mostly because they are suspected of being infected with the new coronavirus have increased more than fivefold in April from a year earlier, according to a survey by Kyodo News.

Its an ugly statistic. And death rates are still low. I'm assuming these patients were accepted elsewhere.

So do they say if they are being directed to a facility that deals with cv19? Are they turned away because the hospital out of ventilators or out of beds?

So what is the point in picking up a patient from the comfort of his or her home if they only gonna get Humiliated, Rejected, and Shuttled Around the city.

How disgusting, the local authorities must arrange with hospitals a system to accept CV-19 patients like they are doing in the rest of the civilized world.

I hate this 'turning away a patient' culture. If a person is sick and needs aid, that's your job.

some of your trying to spin this story again,again,

this story is about patients being turn away from the hospital ,

the main problem is that Japan has no protocol ( did some say Sweden and Japan set up protocols)

This is were the government and hospital are not on one page,

they don't know what either is doing or don't want to coordinate between them.

why you trying to spin this story?

Japan is not a third world country, no patient should be turn away from hospitals,

this is real shame,

Dedicated hospitals should have been decided to receive these patients. Suspected Covid, just go there.....That’s what China did.

Othewise, if hospitals do not fill their duty to receive patients, they should get a heavy fine,

or be urged of .......

A few years ago, some hospitals did not accept some pregnant women who were going to give birth and who were not previously followed anywhere. Reasons were lack of bed or hospitals capabilities. In one case, a woman was refused so many times and died.

This is normal for hospitals in Japan even before CV-19. I have seen it and witnessed it. I hope they will learn from this time and matter going forward.

All of the social ills that have been neglected have been brought front and center. Being rejected by hospitals is nothing new in Japan. There have been too many cases previous to the pandemic where patients have died in ambulances searching for a facility that would accept them. These were outrageous incidents then, and it's only being exacerbated now. Couple of questions. Has the central government worked with the prefectures, and local municipalities in designating segregation of duties for each of the hospitals and has that been properly communicated to the first responders and the public in general? I would venture to say no, or this wouldn't be a news item. Second. What is the contingency plan, i.e. which hospitals will conduct normal services and which are Covid-19 specific? Lastly. Abe is using this crisis to again tout his constitutional amendment. Can we really trust someone with the constintution whose only response to this pandemic has been a failed attempt at getting elementary school grade masks to the public? I think not; moreover, abe-chan had better work to get this hospital musical chairs fiasco under control.

It shows Japan needs to build more public Hospital. Japanese Government needs to spend more money on public health than before.

Private Hospital in Japan is very small compare to other developed countries. I can't complain them.

I hope those critically ill patients get bed at hospital and recover from the illness.

so they were turned away to continue spreading it around on the way, then again on the way home. Vectors, vectors everywhere

Japan is not a third world country, no patient should be turn away from hospitals, 

this is real shame

Japan has a history of turning away patiences in ambulances dating back as far as I've been here - over 20 years. It might not be a "third world" country but in many, many, many ways, Japan is a developing country and the rest of the world is finally seeing that. I believe the US and Japan should be next to each other on the list of developing nations because both are playing very dangerous games with their public.

Other countries have 5 minute test kits. Why doesn't Japan?

Because 5 minutes test kits for covid 19 are still in development and aren't in use in any country.

Because of the following stories:

Study Raises Questions About False Negatives From Quick COVID-19 Test

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/21/838794281/study-raises-questions-about-false-negatives-from-quick-covid-19-test

What happened to all the hotel beds for patients with more mild symptoms? Is it just my imagination or am I hearing a lot more ambulances running around lately? A LOT more. I live I the suburbs, btw, but still one of 23 proper.

If you’re going to make such a claim, then you’d better also support it with evidence on the spot.

In Japan the medical system appears as corrupt as the justice system. Unless the medical system can be 99% sure that you have the virus (i.e. 4 days with a high fever) then they will not test you. This is a great way to make sure that the virus spreads out of control by not knowing where it is but assuming everyone has it and then avoiding to treat them. Collateral damage will be high on all fronts. I find this makes Japan look very bad in terms of being a first world nation treating its citizens so poorly when they have paid their taxes and followed the rules only to be turned away.

Not surprising for a country where people call an ambulance if they have a headache or are a cockroach. It’s a cultural thing rather than medical

If you die before getting a coronavirus test you are not included in the coronavirus death...

You can test outside the hospitals like every other nation

Japan is the only country who have the tests available (capacity @ 20,000 daily Kato) but doesn't not utilize them since February (cap 8,000 daily)

We all were not prepared to pandemics. It is not the only problem of Japan. We are relatively lucky that we do not have to worry about expenses in Japan.

This why I will never live in Tokyo with the M10 earthquake expected anytime and official estimates of 330,000 deaths and over 1,000,000 buildings damaged or destroyed.

Begin packing your goods soon. You cannot tell when Mt. Fuji erupts again. There will be no Tokyo at that time.

So, Where Are My 2 Masks!???

I live in a podunk town in southern Kyushu that claims to have no cases of infection. Our only hospital has people stationed outside each entrance with thermometers. If you have any sign of a fever, they won’t let you in and ask you to leave immediately. So... sure, if you can’t or won’t test for infection, then no infection exists, right? Meanwhile, they require our kids to go to school one day every two weeks for more homework.

Like Sweden, Japan set its own protocol to deal with this pandemic from the very beginning. Unlike Sweden, however, Japan set its highest priority to saving lives where possible.

Japan had two excellent protocols. First, save the Olympics, and the day after the Olympics were canceled, save face.

It is long overdue to stop this ludicrous practice of ambulances calling individual hospitals to ask their permission to bring a patient there. It is surely not beyond human capability to centralize this so that the ambulance is IMMEDIATELY told where to take the patient.

And here is some sobering news for all of you who think those masks make any difference.

The average diameter of the coronavirus particle is .125μm and a burning wood particle is .2μm to 3μm. So in simple terms that you can understand, if while wearing your mask, you can smell burning wood, that mask will do NOTHING to stop the coronavirus from getting through.

Specs taken from these links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/particle-sizes-d_934.html

The average diameter of the coronavirus particle is .125μm and a burning wood particle is .2μm to 3μm. So in simple terms that you can understand, if while wearing your mask, you can smell burning wood, that mask will do NOTHING to stop the coronavirus from getting through.

Masks are multi-layered. Do you think the holes of every layer line up perfectly, so that their are passages of exactly the sizes you list? For this reason (#1) masks, while not being 100% effective, are not 100% ineffective.

The best analogy I read was this. Imagine you're walking around in your shorts, and a guy walks up and pees on your leg. Your leg gets wet. Imagine you put on jeans, and a guy walks up to you and pees on your leg. Your leg gets a little wet. Imagine that guy puts on jeans, and walks up to you, and tries to pee on you. His jeans get wet, yours almost definitely don't get went, and you can pretty much count on your leg being dry.

I honestly don't blame hospitals for feeling scared. The government's mishandling of this entire thing has left people scared and cautious. Especially when there are stories of hospital staff being forced to work even when they have contracted COVID-19.

It shows Japan needs to build more public Hospital. Japanese Government needs to spend more money on public health than before.

Japan needs to build a large, super-hospital on the old Tsukiji Fish Market site and make the emergency room accessible by water to water taxis and water ambulances.

Japan needs to buy a used shipping tanker and repurpose it into a floating hospital and natural disaster ship. Build a large superstructure hospital above deck and store emergency supplies below deck.

These two things need to be done not just for pandemics but also for the upcoming great Kanto earthquake that the experts are predicting.

Allow patients to die in order to save lives? Killing Peter to save Paul?

The media fuelled panic regarding the virus is largely responsible for this and other unreasonable responses by many governments.

We need sensible responses that target the protection of the specifically vulnerable like the elderly and don't wreck entire economies nor result in people not getting medical treatment.

oldman_13: "This is what unnecessary media and internet spurred hysteria and panic causes."

Says the person hysteric in all his comments on the matter. Sorry, but, but hospitals here have been turning away emergency patients because they have full beds (mostly elderly people with colds who don't want to go home and so they take up beds) for ages, and now they are just getting more spotlight because they've refused to deal with it. Here are just a few examples, all around the same time:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2008/11/06/national/another-case-emerges-of-pregnant-woman-rejected-by-tokyo-hospitals/#.Xq-Iby-cY0o

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/2006/10/17/Pregnant-woman-rejected-by-18-hospitals/21211161107592/

https://www.debito.org/?p=603

And, dude, those are PREGNANT women being refused by hospitals... imagine other illnesses and emergencies, which we easily can by doing simple searches... of our memories if nothing else.

Health system needs to be fixed if it cant handle this situation, and as some one mentioned what will happen in the next big quake if this creaking health system is failing now.

Abe what have you done with our tax money besides give it to your cronies?

Pour some more concrete and build some more hospitals and staff them with people who are trained in administering health care with proper equipment to care for the people who have worked and paid taxes that you and your corrupt friends have squandered and partied away amongst yourselves.

Articles about people being turned away from hospitals are routine in Japan. The current problem is less a shortage of beds in most places than an unwillingness to accept patients by many hospitals. A large number of Japanese hospitals are small, private clinics. They have beds, and many even have an MRI machine, but accepting even one or two patients infected with the virus would effectively cripple the hospital.

JJ JetplaneToday 11:19 am JST

I honestly don't blame hospitals for feeling scared. The government's mishandling of this entire thing has left people scared and cautious. Especially when there are stories of hospital staff being forced to work even when they have contracted COVID-19.

It is supposed to be akin to a war situation where as those in the line of fire are called on to make the sacrifice, you know in the old days soldiers signed up to go to war knowing they might get shot and killed and they still signed up for it. Thats what soldiers were for and thats what they did.

Nurses signed up to treat the sick thats their job thats what they signed up for, or did they just sign up for the benifits, white uniform, the hope they might meet a nice doctor and live happily ever after?

Hospitals are supposed to treat the sick thats their job , that what they are for.

Something wrong with the way the world thinks these days .

@socrateos

The numbers show a success to a degree.

US, where most aggressive testing are performed, shows the number of corona related deaths as 207 per million. Japan, where testing is limited, shows the number as 4 per million.

That is solace for many Japanese, but the number of deaths is proportional to the number of tests, not the population. Without test, how can people know whether the death was related with COVID-19?

Above all, the Japanese government has done their best to suppress the official number of deaths by various statistical manipulations, and few people except some Japanese would believe the numbers:

https://www.newsweekjapan.jp/marukawa/2020/05/post-62_6.php (in Japanese)

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200403-00000008-nkgendai-life (Japanese)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2020/04/14/underreporting-of-covid-19-deaths-in-the-us-and-europe/#488f16a182d7

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/27/those-covid-19-death-toll-figures-are-incomplete/

This is the key factor between a public and a private system. In a fully public system, you just get taken to the nearest, or most appropriate hospital for your condition.

In a private system the hospitals decide who is admitted, and they can be very selective if they wish. When demand goes up they can pick and choose the patients they think will be the least hassle to deal with, and will yield the most profits.

Call me cynical, but years a go there were cases of poor dying elderly patients in ambulances struggling to find a hospital at peak times. The same applies. Why admit them when you know you're not going to me able to administer any costly treatments, and the bloke in the next ambulance is a fully insured 40 year old who'd just been in a car accident. . . . .

The link of nkgendai-life does not work. A working link:

https://www.nikkan-gendai.com/articles/view/life/271310

InspectorGadget: "This is the key factor between a public and a private system. In a fully public system, you just get taken to the nearest, or most appropriate hospital for your condition. In a private system the hospitals decide who is admitted, and they can be very selective if they wish. When demand goes up they can pick and choose the patients they think will be the least hassle to deal with, and will yield the most profits."

Bingo! That's what I originally came on here to talk about, but alas... got sidetracked. Anyway, you're exactly correct, and the government should be immediately defunding or stopping any and all subsidies to such clinics/hospitals who refuse said patients, and threaten to revoke their licences for any further incidents. And if the situation gets worse, then, well, the government should use their powers and pass laws to nationalize the hospitals. Profit should not be put ahead of the health of the people and the nation.

Just building and making hospitals will not solve the problem, as already stated somewhere above, there's a shortage of medical personnel.

Even the utilization of existing medical personnel aren't/can't be maximized because of shortages in supplies and equipment.

Limiting testing to those who urgently need it could be a consequence of limited resources, they want to allocate the most resources on treating patients instead of testing all possible cases and just telling the vast majority to go and recuperate at home whatever the result anyway.

Not surprising for a country where people call an ambulance if they have a headache or are a cockroach.

Be fair. You don't really expect cockroaches to drive themselves to the hospital do you?

Because everyone knew this once in a hundred years pandemic was coming right? And of course we should have thousands of hospital beds available at all times, just in case. Not to mention many thousands of the required staff standing around waiting.

Amazing how experts crawl out of the woodwork every time....

The world should have been ready for this pandemic but it wasn't.

May 2, shows recent jump in C~virus cases,  . . . may possibly suggest, Japan opens facilities more slowly.

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=MJyvXqTXC4W0sQXSiL_ACA&q=coronavirus%2C+japan%2C+graph&oq=coronavirus%2C+japan%2C+graph&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoCCAA6BQgAEIMBOgQIABAKOgQIABADUPIVWOpdYKBgaANwAHgAgAFjiAHOEpIBAjI4mAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwikr_nHsZnpAhUFWqwKHVLED4gQ4dUDCAw&uact=5#spf=1588567102714

Because everyone knew this once in a hundred years pandemic was coming right?

There was plenty of warning. This is something that happens to humanity regularly. Many countries had pandemic plans in place as a result, so your theory kind of falls apart. Even the US had a task force for it until Trump's administration tore it apart.

Ambulances. All I've heard this Sutay ato homu week from my balcony is ambulances. Sometimes three at a time.

@Gobshite

Because everyone knew this once in a hundred years pandemic was coming right?

Well, yes. Because everyone knew. Pandemics re-occur in cycles.

'Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak '. Look it up & watch it.

And yet the official figures tell us that there are only 11,000 active cases in Japan. Could the healthcare system really be brought to three point of collapse by so few infections or are the Japanese stats utter baloney?

Probably both.

Im just wondering, how were those covid19 patients that are now being treated at hospitals managed to get in?

There is one more thing that is not mentioned here, and that is the people that work in the hospitals, ambulance crews are at risk from C19, like here in the UK they are exposed to this virus all of the time, and quite a few have been infected and they have paid the ultimate price. this put more pressure on the heath service as more and more doctors and nurses have died, or got into quarantine as they get infected, thus putting more pressure on those left. In the UK, the government has asked retired doctors and nurses to come back to help out, this could be the case in Japan?

And there was me with the ridiculous notion that hospitals were meant take in sick people.

I guess that's one way to keep the Statistics low...

Remember when reading this that it's saying the number of people being rejected for being suspected of having covid 19 like symptoms(essentially identical sympys to flu, which is also a coronavirus) has increased from however many thousands compared to a few hundred a year ago.

This makes sense. Hospitals need to be taking care of cancer patients and other patients in critical need. Ofcourse with the hysteria, people are going to be flooding the hospitals. Doctors have realized most cases are mild.

In the usa, from my understanding hospitals receive extra funding per patient, so they accepted them all and people with cancer etc were not able to get the treatment they need.

Skimming through this makes it sound alot worse than what the news really is.

Media in a nutshell.

Bingo! That's what I originally came on here to talk about, but alas... got sidetracked. Anyway, you're exactly correct, and the government should be immediately defunding or stopping any and all subsidies to such clinics/hospitals who refuse said patients, and threaten to revoke their licences for any further incidents. And if the situation gets worse, then, well, the government should use their powers and pass laws to nationalize the hospitals. Profit should not be put ahead of the health of the people and the nation.

Im not going to get into the details of what system is better here.

But seriously. Most people who say "profit should not be put ahead of the nation and people" only mean it as long as it's not their own profits. "You should put lives ahead of profit, but not my profit!"

Should Toyota not be allowed to make a profit because there is a chance to die in a car accident?

Should McDonald's not be allowed to make profit because stupid people might eat it everyday, get fat and "overwhelm" the system.( Do they even make profits?)

Should cheap cars be banned because they aren't as safe as expensive ones? Because car companies make profits from cheap cars right?

Now back to healthcare:

look at how people vote with their feet. Thousands of Canadians and swedes every year go to the United States to get medical service.

Remember there is no such thing as free healthcare. You pay for it with waiting time, the other with money.

I don't get what the obsession with big government is? You guys always complain about abe, criticize him for everything, yet are pro big govt.

"Other countries have 5 minute test kits"

Other countries!

Well, the UK is part of "other countries"; we don't have such kits.

And reports from Portuguese and Spanish people I know from work, say they don't have it either.

I know of 1, (probably 2) and it's just a "claim".

"Researcher claims to have created a COVID-19 test that costs £2 and gives results in five minutes"

"https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8175423/Researcher-claims-created-COVID-19-test-costs-2-gives-results-five-minutes.html"

What were you saying about "other countries having the 5 minutes test kits again"?

One should be forgiven from implying (from your statement) that all other countries have the test, except backwards Japan.

"Other countries have 5 minute test kits"

Unfortunately, other countries also have a lot of test kits that provide a high levels of both false negatives and false positives - in other words they don't work well. Not all testing kits are equal. Many have been rushed out.

as some of you said, hospitals have been not accepting patients for past 20 years, that might be true but this is pandemic which no one has ever seem or experienced before in our life time.

earthquake and tsunami end,this virus does not end, don't know when it will disappear .

so i don't accept that excuse of turning away patients. this blame goes directly to current PM Abe group and the old medical groups.

this is fundamental problem of PM Abe, instead of preparation, it's 100% reaction.

instead of applying best practices, it's fumbling, bumbling, and staggering actions.

Where organization and preparation has been key to Japanese culture, i don't see any here from PM Abe

so when your father is PM,and you get to be PM, had a silver spoon life, this is what happens when

elite becomes a politician, they don't know or understand the common people,

when you never earn a honest Yen in your life, or actually studied anything valuable this is what happens

i hope this costly lesson will awake up common folks to get involved in politics and at least vote...

If we assume malice from the outset then we will see malice all throughout.

The article says people are being denied admittance to hospitals because they are suspected to be afflicted with covid19.

If the hospitals aren't equipped for covid19 or have no more rooms to accommodate more patients then aren't those reasons valid?

In the first place there is a protocol for people who suspect they have covid19, and that is to call a hotline for screening. That is aimed precisely to prevent suspected covid19 patients from just popping up in any and all hospitals most probably.

But I agree that for really emergency cases hospitals shouldn't be turning down anyone, they should stabilize the patients first before looking for hospitals more equipped for cases they're not.

Just building and making hospitals will not solve the problem, as already stated somewhere above, there's a shortage of medical personnel.

One of the great advantages to building a new hospital in the year 2020 is that you can build a "smart hospital" that utilizes advanced information technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics, tele-surgery, 3-D printing, drone delivery facilities, etc. to help alleviate personnel and equipment shortages. These are the things companies like Softbank and Sony and Toyota should be working on.

Also, in an emergency, medical personnel can always be flown in from other regions and even other countries but it is very difficult for the medical infrastructure to scale up overnight.

I am really worried about cities like Tokyo not being prepared for the upcoming great Kanto earthquake.

It is hard to believe the direction that Japan is heading. Ambulances picking patients and driving around for hours without a hospital to accept them? What about some makeshift hospitals?

@hari45, the other week I did suggest turning the Tokyo dome into a temp hospital.

It's not a good time to be hospitalized now

Hospitals need to develop a Covid-19 section

They can't be turning away people who are truly sick

I suspect a large number of people may think they are infected, but will resist going to a doctor where they may get tested - for financial reasons. If they are just getting by, a positive test result would mean quarantine and the inability to work. Unless there is insurance or some sort of financial aid provided, losing work might be disastrous for them. And the odds of it become serious are relatively small. Hence, all these people not seeing doctors until the symptoms appear life-threatening.

A true Coronavirus Catch-22. I guess this means that all corvid 19 numbers coming out of Japan should five times less credible.

Businesses are checking their employees for symptoms. If there's any hint of infection (body temp, cough, sore throat, where they've traveled,etc.), they're sent home and followed up.

Businesses don't want the disease to spread throughout the whole workforce and more importantly to their customers. That's disastrous for the business.