Japan considers letting dentists administer COVID-19 vaccines

Yeah, because swab, jab, plunge and monitor is so tough.

I watched an interesting discussion on BS Fuji last night that featured film of a London-based reporter getting his vaccine shot. The reporter asked the middle-aged man administering the shot if he was a doctor. "No," the man said, "I'm a tennis coach." The "tennis coach" said he'd given around 3,000 shots already....

There was a guy from the Communist Party on the discussion panel. He was extremely critical of the government's handling of the crisis so far and said repeatedly that the Olympics should be cancelled.

Why is the government so slow to make any decision here. This is common sense to use the dentists to help so hurry up and decide !

Or a vet! My dog’s vet does it every single day. This isn’t rocket science.

a friend in the States tells me that pharmacies also administer 'the jab'....

@Hiro

@Gorramcowboy, how course they have to considered. Dentist don't work for the government. Who is to say many dentists are even willing to accept patient everyday to vaccine them? And is the government willing to pay them for everyday work? Also who would supervise them in case they steal or secretly sell the vaccine? Or worse is if they have enough qualify people to the vaccination. There are dozen of things to considered before they actually do such a thing. For example what happen if something goes wrong during the vaccination and who will be responsible etc? You are naive if you think these things can be immediately decided.

NO, you're being naive. You are correct that there are many issues to consider. However, a competent government would already have considered these issues. It has now been ONE YEAR since the Pfizer vaccine trials started; it has been FIVE MONTHS since countries like the UK and US STARTED vaccinating people.

Don't you think perhaps the Japanese government has had a very long time to consider these issues? Slow to the point of incompetence.

This country does nothing but consider.

Nice try, but there are only about 105,000 dentists in all of Japan.

Only 260,000 doctors.

Luckily, there are 1.2 million nurses.

They need to start using: pharmacists, veterinarians, paramedics, SDF etc.

About 70 million people who are eligible want to be inoculated.

The most they have jabbed in one day is about 100,000 people.

Awesome! It won’t be long and you’ll be able to get vaccinated at the 7/11 too.

Straight in the gums baby!

At this glacial pace, the pandemic will certainly be over before we all get vaccinated.

Zoroto

What about nurses? AFAIK, nurses today, shockingly, are not allowed to vaccinate in Japan

A doctor I teach told me this:

the doctor interviews the patient (questions about name, age, allergies etc), then the nurse injects the vaccine. If the doctor injects it, the nurse hands it to him, so it is more efficient for the nurse to inject the vaccine while the doctor moves on to the next patient.

So, I believe your information might be in error. However, legally I believe only the doctor stabs patients with needles.

Give me a nurse who does 200 shots a day over any doctor who does 10. A sister who is an MD has been volunteering giving shots at a drive-thru place in her state. She's more about doing the task than patient comfort. And she's a terrible driver. All corners of her car have dings within a month of getting it. She says "car's aren't important", so it isn't worth her time worrying about that.

Dentists? Do we have to get the shot in the palate? Besides there, the inside cheek and directly in gums are were my dentist always do it. Hate to say this, but due to a few accidents, I've spent hours multiple times in dentist chairs having work done. ZERO cavities, just due to accidents. The banana flavored Novocain isn't too bad once they finally get the needle in. Before that, ouch. It is never a good sign when they reach for a mallet.

Got the 2nd shot this morning. The nurse who did it was excellent. Perfect technique - upper arm muscle. Didn't feel the jab at all AND I got a sparkily band-aid this time. ;) 211,581,309 doses of COVID-19 vaccines doses injected in the US as of Monday morning. Love it when a plan comes together.

There is enough dentist in Tokyo so why not?

It’s important to consider the possible varying effects of a dentist administered vaccine. The government should complete initial research into this before making a decision. At the very bare minimum a symposium or a simple gee hmm with doctors and dental associations should be held. The first step is to form a committee. We must be careful. Haste makes waste.

Hiro

@Gorramcowboy, how course they have to considered. Dentist don't work for the government. Who is to say many dentists are even willing to accept patient everyday to vaccine them? And is the government willing to pay them for everyday work? Also who would supervise them in case they steal or secretly sell the vaccine? Or worse is if they have enough qualify people to the vaccination. There are dozen of things to considered before they actually do such a thing. For example what happen if something goes wrong during the vaccination and who will be responsible etc? You are naive if you think these things can be immediately decided. For all we know the patient might even sue the dentist if something goes wrong.

The gov't is willing and has been handing out a cool 60,000JPY daily to hundred of thousands of restaurants

just to close at 8:00pm , the same gov't is willing and has been giving private hospital 17M yen for each serious Covid case that the admit.

Wow, dentist in Japan are petty thieves that steal and peddle vaccines.

Going by warped thinking the world would still be in the stone ages.

I guess you don't have a phone or computer because you are worried it will overheat

and blow up, you don't have a car because there might be brake failure, you don't use

electricity because you a worried it might cause fire, Should I go on.

Sorry, it is you who is grossly naive.

Well they give anaesthetic injections during treatment anyway so it makes sense.

Flu jabs are often given by pharmacists here so why not? Sign them up too!

In the UK, I was vaccinated at a mass vaccination center that had circa 20 booths, so could do circa 20 people every 10 minutes. Volunteers ran the administration - reservation / checkin like with a restaurant booking, giving you the paperwork, then checking and taking the paperwork.

The vaccine itself was administered by the Royal Air Force. There were four in my booth - a nurse who did the pre-medical questions. A second person who gave the shot. A third and a fourth who were observing and learning the process to scale up.

In total I interacted with 8 people before I left.

The system will need many many people to support it in Japan... anyone with a steady hand can give a shot once trained. But it will start with doctors, nurses, dentists, vets, pharmacists volunteering their time. Then the SDF and whoever can be trained quickly; plus retired folk and other volunteers supporting the admin. It requires a system that is self organising at a local level and quickly scalable and quickly learns from mistakes. Fail fast and learn quick is better than constructing some perfect solution too down.

UK massively benefitted from the NHS, a competitive advantage compared to other countries.

Good luck to Japan I hope the September target is achieved as I plan to visit in October!

So, I believe your information might be in error. However, legally I believe only the doctor stabs patients with needles.

This is correct. I have an ongoing medical condition that requires three injections every two weeks. I asked my doctor if I can do this at home or the nurse can do it, to save his time. He told me it is not allowed. But I also need blood tests, which are carried out by nurses in a different room.

If we trained up hair salons to give the shots, we’d have the whole population done in a day.

They’ll “consider” it until COVID-19 is gone in about four years. The reason Japan is behind the rest of the world in vaccinations is because they’re too busy holding philosophical debates and never acting until too late.

In March, within a week of being in the UK, I had been given my first AstraZeneca injection by one of the pharmacists in Boots.

No swabs or plasters-sleeve up, needle in and out and that was it.

I was told to remain nearby in case of possible side effects but 5 minutes later was taking the dog for a walk.

Sure. Dentists, pharmacists, FD paramedics, SDF medics, veterinarians. Anybody with any medically-related experience should be administering the vaccines. (And, the most obvious, nurses, who are legally allowed to remove stuff via hypodermic syringe. But, are apparently not legally allowed to insert stuff that way.)

They should be utilizing fire houses, SDF bases, drug stores, community centers, municipal health offices, any facilities and personnel that can get 120 million people vaccinated twice in as little time as possible. Also, approve the damn Moderna vaccine, so more doses will be available quickly.

It will be the same issue that they are having now with testing. The majority of dental practices are privately run. If you want them to help out in the vaccination drive you need to adequately subsidise them for regular business they are missing out on.

HiroToday  07:25 am JST

@Gorramcowboy, how course they have to considered. Dentist don't work for the government. Who is to say many dentists are even willing to accept patient everyday to vaccine them? And is the government willing to pay them for everyday work? Also who would supervise them in case they steal or secretly sell the vaccine? Or worse is if they have enough qualify people to the vaccination. There are dozen of things to considered before they actually do such a thing. For example what happen if something goes wrong during the vaccination and who will be responsible etc? You are naive if you think these things can be immediately decided. For all we know the patient might even sue the dentist if something goes wrong.

And here we have the root of the problem. This kind of attitude is why we are way behind the rest of the world.

Supply shortage has been the main reason for the slow rollout, with Japan trailing far behind countries such as Britain and the United States.

Dear KYODO, can we have a link to the data to back this claim?

Some of you claim that only doctors can use a needle...well haven't you ever had blood taken? I never had a doctor do it. Only nurses and they used a needle to do it rather than one of those leeches like in the middle ages. Nurses are very capable with needles.

Dentists administer injections as part of their work. A quick brush up on anaphylactic shock and they are ready to go.

You can train anyone with a couple of brain cells to administer a vaccine, even with anaphylactic training it should take a day tops.

Just as long as the doctors don't start doing dental work.

@Hiro

Dentist don't work for the government.

Easy, the government will work with dentists similar to an employer and and independent contractor. Materials, procurement, and in some cases facilities are provided the employer and the labor is paid for their service.

Who is to say many dentists are even willing to accept patient everyday to vaccine them?

Doesn't matter, independent contractor choose to do the work. Dentist can take advantage of the free advertising of their primary service while being paid to promote good will.

And is the government willing to pay them for everyday work?

The government doesn't have to, but paying for the service it prevents your following point.

Also who would supervise them in case they steal or secretly sell the vaccine?

See above. Also there are checks in place to make sure dentist are not misusing their normal drugs like anesthetics. Just expand those checks for vaccines.

Or worse is if they have enough qualify people to the vaccination.

Dentistry clinics tend to be sole practitioners, with the owner being the person qualified to carry out procedures. For larger, company style, clinics, it just comes down to training to remove liability.

There are dozen of things to considered before they actually do such a thing.

For the uniformed, it can seem that way. But really it's just optics that are concerning.

For example what happen if something goes wrong during the vaccination and who will be responsible etc?

Currently, paitients are required to sign a wavier before the drug is injected. As it's a muscle shot, if the needle breaks it's realatively easy to remove. Then there is also general insurance, which is likely to be covered by the employer (government) as they hired the independent contractor (dentist).

You are naive if you think these things can be immediately decided.

Pretty easy as these protocols already exists. Only issues are the politicaly uninformed and optics.

For all we know the patient might even sue the dentist if something goes wrong.

Can, but they signed a waiver to get the shot and insurance has a payout plan ready to go for improper application.

Hope this helped.

Sound plan in theory, but going to the dentist doesn't seem to be particularly popular in Japan.

Are people suddenly going to stop seeing dentists and stop having check-ups?

No vaccine for me thank you, I am not one of the vulnerable

But you can still get infected and spread it to other members of the inter-connected, mutually dependent society that you live in.

In Economic terms, you are what is known as a "free-rider". You benefit from the mass vaccination without contributing to the increases in public health.

Yeah, I'm not particularly vulnerable (41, athletic, not a big fat guy with diabetes or whatever), but I got the vaccine last week mainly so that whenever Japan opens up, if they say you need to show proof of vaccine, I can.

I have a 3-year old son who hasn't seen his grandparents (in person) since the end of 2019. Like many priorities that get shuffled around a bit when you have kids, that's the driver here. I got a weird concoction stuck in my arm so I can take my little boy on an airplane.

I would like better if the government lets dentists be in charge of approving safe and effective vaccines for use in the country, maybe even take care of the logistics and planning of the whole thing. At this point it is very likely they (or anyone) would do a much better job than those that are currently in charge.

...great, in the end you will also be able to get vaccinated at the supermarket or at the car repair shop...

Drlucifer and isolucky...you obviously have no knowledge of how medical care is administered in Japan.

Your ideas may actually be good but they are irrelevant to the actual situation.

kurisupisuApr. 20  04:49 pm JST

In March, within a week of being in the UK, I had been given my first AstraZeneca injection by one of the pharmacists in Boots.

Why were’t you isolating for ten days? I had my first dose the day after my quarantined finished.

Next...coming to convenient stores near you! Wouldn't surprise me if GOJ will have it available over-the-counter.

What about nurses? AFAIK, nurses today, shockingly, are not allowed to vaccinate in Japan

Nurses do vaccinate in Japan. When my son was born, I did a vaccine for the chickenpox because I did not get it during my childhood. A nurse administered me the vaccine. My wife and son get a flu vaccine every year, a nurse administers them the vaccine each time they go. Every vaccine my son took since he was born was administered by a nurse. So how do you explain that?

However, legally I believe only the doctor stabs patients with needles.

What does that even mean? Something as simple as a health check requires taking a blood sample. And oh yes sure you get “stabbed with a needle”. Every time I had a blood sample taken since I started to live in Japan 19 years ago, a nurse did it. So what are we talking about here?

This is always the mistake, the Japanese government made. Anyone can do the job. Very dangerous.

Sorry to all the negative voters but Hiro is completely correct in his observations. However, should the government have had these discussions earlier and already have measures in place is a very valid point.

Hiro didn't mention the timing!

Yes, and finally let’s engage all construction workers and staff at all DIY home centers, because also they are very good at setting those syringe-like cartridges containing that expanding construction foam. Not exactly and a bit bigger than vaccines, but does that still matter? lol

Yeah that would be great but there no vaccine supplies and the elderly, who contribute nothing to society, are prioritized because hospitals don’t want to be overwhelmed with the old.

The only reason a doctor must be present is because of many possible side effects. Not dissing dentists, but do you buy a tailor made suit in a shoe shop?

No vaccine for me thank you, I am not one of the vulnerable

@Gorramcowboy, how course they have to considered. Dentist don't work for the government. Who is to say many dentists are even willing to accept patient everyday to vaccine them? And is the government willing to pay them for everyday work? Also who would supervise them in case they steal or secretly sell the vaccine? Or worse is if they have enough qualify people to the vaccination. There are dozen of things to considered before they actually do such a thing. For example what happen if something goes wrong during the vaccination and who will be responsible etc? You are naive if you think these things can be immediately decided. For all we know the patient might even sue the dentist if something goes wrong.