TLDR: fell with the bike, got a flesh wound on my hand, 3 hospitals did not care to help and send us away. After 3 hours with an open wound and driving with our own car to the next city, I got help and hand got fixed.
Advice: always call 119 don’t try to find help by your own, especially when Doctors are about to close.
I had today a frustrating experience with the hospitals. What happened:
I was on my way to bike to the train station as always and it was rainy. In front of my house I fell with my bike, everything went so fast. I think my tires went on the edge of the guiding lines for the blind and both tires just went sideways.
I caught myself with one foot fell and rolled myself forward with one hand and landed on my back. I jumped up in a second, Everything okay I thought, until I saw that I cut my hand maybe on the curb or stone and the blood was just running out of an open wound on my palm.
Anyways, I went back home to talk to my wife and maybe find a doctor. We called the nearest hospital and they said they can’t help me since they just take care of emergencies. But also did not care to help where we can go. (I felt like an emergency since after 20 minutes the hand was still bleeding even after strong compression)
We searched then the next nearest clinic what was 5 minutes by walk and we went there just to get turned down on the reception again, they told us they can’t help. But they gave us another adress for a doctor.
We walk back home and jumped in our car, to drive to the doctor. When we arrived they told us they can’t help because they will close in 10 minutes… At this point I got frustrated
Back to the first one, without calling them just showing up and hope they can just fix the stupid flesh wound…
The reception remembered us and did not took us any serious and was laughing at us. and said we should wait in the entrance, after 15 minutes a nurse showed up and checked my hand and said I need stitches but they don’t do it here because this is not an emergency. I was covered in blood and they did not even care to give me a clean tissue
After my wife start crying because she was so angry she demanded that they give us a place where we can get help. They gave us an adress what was a 30 minute car drive away.
In the end this hospital was finally helping me, fixed my hand and gave me some pain killers. And the doctor was really nice. He finally told us that if we have this case, we just need to call 119 and they will organize where to go. I just wonder why nobody else was able to tell us that. Just to mention, getting a syringe in your open hand sucks a lot.
34 comments
You mean 119?
Yeah I guess the way it’s done here is to go to a clinic and if that’s not possible call an ambulance.
Felt really sick all of a sudden once, took a taxi to the hospital, got turned away, walked out and passed out in front of that hospital. Ambulance picked me up at the hospital to take me to different hospital nearby
Doesn’t make any sense to me but I guess there’s some systematic reason. Feels very cartel-like though
Canada you’d have to wait 5 hours in an ER.
That sucks, but it does help to call ahead. I had a similar experience recently and I called #7119 (the “should I call an ambulance?” number) and they gave me the numbers of the four closest clinics with the right specialization. Three of them still said no or were closed, but it saved me from walking more on the injury or rocking up to a clinic that wouldn’t have the facilities to help anyway.
This is the UK but when my nephew spilled boiling hot tea (thanks mum) on himself , we took him to ER and had to wait about 3 hours while he was crying in agony. In Japan my ex MIL had kidney stones and some were so big the hospital couldn’t do anything, she got turned away from 4-5 til one finally saw her. She stopped smoking and started drinking a lot of water from then on because she says she never wants to experience that again lol.
One day I fell off my bike and landed on some glass. I ended up with a glass shard buried somewhere near my wrist. Needless to say I was gushing blood like crazy. The whole thing looked like a crime scene. Somehow I walked myself to the closest hospital, which was closed. The guard outside was about to tell me to turn back when he saw I was basically bleeding out. In no time a doctor came down and stitched me back up.
So yeah maybe unless you are at risk of death via blood loss they won’t take you lol.
Well this kinda happened to me as well. I fell down from my bike in February. Lost upper incissors. Called 110(didn’t know they had a separate number for ambulance) They asked me where I am (How would I know I’m not Google maps ). I gave my home adress cus I was close to my home.
They came and started to question me instead of first aid lol. We had to walk back where I fell,and then the police asked why did I abandon my broken bike while I am injured, I am like WTF? Finally we got into ambulance they tried to find hospital for 2 hours straight, finally they found one in ibaraki prefecture and asked me if I wanted to go there lol. Is there not a single emergency dental hospital in all Tokyo that is open after 6 pm?
Well I said F it take me back to my home I will go to doctor by myself tomorrow just give me some painkillers. They said they can’t because it is not their duties just get some from Matsukyo.
I guess one of the reasons of the population crisis in Japan is the hospitals. Since they do not exist after working hours, If you are injured during the night you are dead.
I am not a huge fan of the Japanese medical system. However I have never been turned away for anything. For example, my wife likes to take our kids to the hospital even if they have just a small cough.
If we go at 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday they’ll still see us. Sometimes they do nothing, but they will take our money and see us.
Friend has trouble breathing and called an ambulance. They proceeded to wait in the ambulance calling a bunch of different clinics to see if they’d take him.
Sorry to hear that this happened to you, it’s pretty poor of them to laugh at your medical emergency. I went to a hospital in Tokyo for a lung condition that was making it very painful and hard to breathe, and had to wait hours to get seen. I guess it’s a common occurrence looking at this thread, and that I should just call 119 in emergencies.
I grew up mostly in the US (I’m Japanese American) and never went to the hospital in a similar urgency, so not sure how those experiences would have compared. Outside of this, I’ve been pretty happy with the medical system in Japan, though I’m comparing against the US which is not saying much.
Because Japanese people can’t think outside the box. If it’s not on their manual or training, they’ll go ballistic! I think the Japanese term for this situation is 無茶振り.
This isn’t a Japan exclusive thing I’ve encountered this nearly every place I’ve been to and in some cases it was even worse. Generally speaking not all hospitals are on duty every day during the off hours and you either have to check or call an ambulance or emergency service who coordinate where people should go.
It is my understanding that in an emergency you must call 119 and an ambulance will pick you up, arrange the correct hospital with the correct specialization and with capacity to treat you, and you will get prompt and free transport to that hospital, who will be prepared for you when you arrive.
If unsure, you call 7119 and they will either advise you it’s an emergency and get an ambulance, or tell you which clinic or hospital to go to who has the specialization to treat you and is still open. In some cases they offer to call the clinic and arrange for your arrival.
As far as I understand, this is “common knowledge” (as common as knowing the emergency numbers, etc) here.
I have lived in a few counties that have similar systems. In most cases, I think it’s quite sensible.
Going door to door with something serious (or even a little bit serious) is very uncommon, and I’m not surprised that the receptionists were a bit confused or unhelpful.
Correct. Get an ambulance, they’ll initially treat you, and they’ll follow up with finding a place. You don’t have to do anything else. I’ve had to use them for some things and they were on it.
The way hospitals can turn people with serious injuries away is mind boggling.
I took a taxi to a hospital I’d been to before because I was having trouble breathing.
It was winter and they made me wait outside, and then told me to call some number to find another hospital to go to.
I couldn’t fucking breath…
They called a taxi and essentially shoved me into it.
There’s so so many clinics and I always wonder what use are they besides passing out a few antibiotics and what not for simple sicknesses. What else can they do?! Do they have imaging equipment or anything like that? Some may but not the ones I’ve seen. Hospitals have their own oddities
I’m sorry you experienced that 🙁 thank you for sharing so we know what to do in this situation, glad it worked out in the end
Had this happen so many times even in non emergency circumstances the once we used to visit regularly.
If you are bleeding or fainting call the ambulance number 119.
For non emergency call the below number to find clinics and hospitals
Himawari (Tokyo Metropolitan Health and Medical Information Center)
Tel: 03-5285-8181
URL: http://www.himawari.metro.tokyo.jp/
Not sure where OP is from, but as a poor American, one of the hardest parts about living in Japan is calling for an ambulance. We have it drilled in our heads that calling for one will cost at least a month’s salary (even if no hospital treatment is needed) so we prefer to just walk in to urgent care if we need stiches. Japan, on the other hand, has a pretty good system for healthcare and you should just call the 119 hotline right away if you have any medical issues.
I am of the belief that some of these hospitals lack the equipment (or skills?) Which should be standard. I also ran around before winding up at a hospital ER
That’s very frustrating.
I got a similar experience when I got burned from boiling water it was a Friday late at night. There was a hospital near my house that had emergency service. I called them and they wouldn’t treat me. I couldn’t find any other place near by and it was late in the evening. I figured it would be the same in the weekend. So I ended up buying stuff from the drug store and treated myself.
It’s the one thing that I can’t understand why in an advanced country like Japan, it’s so difficult to get emergency care and near impossible in the weekend or holiday.
The problem is that triage works differently in Japan, and the Japanese doctors don’t understand that it’s different OUTSIDE of Japan, so they see us as lacking in common sense.
In the US and afaik in most of the rest of the world, triage is done by nurses when you arrive at the hospital. They take a look at you, assign you a priority level, and you’re their problem until you get to see a doctor.
In Japan, triage is done by EMS; hospitals might not even *have* outpatient triage nurses, because they assume the ambulance service is going to do that initial diagnosis/first aid for them, and you’ll wait in the ambulance until a doctor is available. A Japanese paramedic can do the same work as a triage nurse to stabilize you.
They’re assholes for laughing at you, I’m sorry that happened.
Edit: I don’t think it’s main-character-y to consider it a double standard that the same people who assume their culture is uniquely impenetrable and incomprehensible to outsiders, simultaneously expect foreigners to intuitively use their system without explanation. Even older or rural Japanese people have problems figuring out how the triage and referral system works (the splitting of primary and secondary care is relatively recent, and there’s still PCPs doing emergency housecalls) so something’s not being communicated effectively, language and cultural barriers aside.
This scenario is my only real complaint with Japanese medical care.
The infuriating thing is I have had several Japanese people suggest to me that elderly people who call ambulances for minor things are abusing the system – that emergency resources need to be available for real emergencies and you shouldn’t be calling them for minor things. But then you try to follow the correct procedure for minor things and you get jerked around by people who don’t want to work with you.
There are people with power in the system, particularly when it comes to non-emergency after-hours medical care, who see their role as less about protecting public health and more about sitting on their ass and protecting their shift from work.
I had this exact thing happen to me back in 2002, only in my case I had broken my elbow in the bike accident. My wife was with me, we called a taxi and began an expensive 2 hour tour around 4 hospitals before we found one that would take me. I was in a lot of pain the whole time.
The worst was the hospital where the staff suggested another hospital that “might” see me, and we asked if they could call, or we could use their phone to confirm (this was in 2002 and we didn’t have a cell phone). They helpfully told me, with a broken arm and delirious with pain, that their was a convenience store a couple blocks away with a pay phone and told me to go there.
Alway call an ambulance if you’ve got an injury that requires medical attention here. Even if you don’t need the emergency, life saving care, they are the only ones who know where to take you.
Man the hospitals here can be so weird.
My MiL has been having health problems lately. About a month ago she got really confused and lost in the mall 2 blocks from our house, then passed out. A lady at the mall called the ambulance.
The hospital kept her overnight, but didn’t do any tests or anything. When my wife asked them, they said they weren’t going to do any tests “just to make the family feel better” because they were “overworked” already.
They ended up needing to take her to a hospital in another city to get any help at all.
Out of curiosity, what are the ambulance staff qualifications in Japan? Paramedics only ? Trained emergency nurses and doctors?
Just to get an idea of the scope of treatment one can except before being properly taken care of in a hospital.
Glad you got help eventually–dealing with sudden injuries is a pain…
I broke my arm several years ago, and went to a clinic first (the people I was with panicked and just went to the closest medical establishment lol)–the clinic didn’t have the resources to help so we had to go to the closest big hospital. They were luckily able to treat me, but I sat around for about 3 hours, then another 2 hours before I could go home, which took about an hour. I then had to sit at home for 7 days with a very broken arm, before being admitted to the hospital, where I would need to wait another 3 days before I could get surgery. I was then required to stay for a month. Longest experience of my life lol.
I fell off a flight of stairs onto the ground below and broke my arm. Walked to the university hospital. They said sorry we cannot help.
Your mistake was deciding to go to the hospital by yourself.
Sadly that’s not how things work here, you call the ambulance and they decide which hospital to take you to.
This is not america (if you are from there) you will not be charged for the ambulance, let them make the decisions and take you, you will be taken care.
I learn this the hard way as well, once time I was having the worst intoxication ever, and decided to go to the nearby hospital by foot… 19pm sorry we are closing.
wtf is a hospital business in closing? I’d never see that in my home country
I’m so sorry this happened to you. It’s a nightmare here. 3 months ago I was receiving treatment for mono (after jumping through a million hoops that is a story in of itself) and I woke up one morning with massive rib pain. Easily a 9/10 on the pain scale but I could breathe so I did not call an ambulance but walked 20 minutes to the 24/7 emergency clinic. Thankfully as I walked the pain went down to like a 7. I explained to them I was receiving treatment at another clinic and due to my cough and fever I think I cracked a rib. However, the second I mentioned fever and cough they were like “COVID?! Covid test?!” and I’m like “I’m in a lot of pain now, not Covid. Here is my paperwork from other hospital for the tests they ran” and she was like “I don’t see a Covid test on here” and I said “I’m in pain NOW because of my rib I don’t want to talk about Covid” but she kept screeching about a Covid test. If yelling and talking didn’t hurt so much… well whatever. Luckily I had possession of my insurance card because I snatched up everything and walked away. Luckily within a day the pain went away on its own, but to this day I’m confused why it hurt so much. We’ve all been sore from coughing too much but this was something else.
I’m from the states so I always thought that at least it was cheap here but this experience and others makes me thankful that at least it’s easier to find good quality health care. Screeching so much about Covid in 2023… unbelievable
Clinics can do stitches if it is a minor wound and will arrange a hospital if they determine that they can’t help you.
I had to call an ambulance twice while in Japan. Both times the ambulance arrived within 15 min, assessed the situation and then spent 20-30 min on the phone looking for a hospital that would take me. And those guys are doing it everyday and mostly now which hospitals to call etc…
The first time we could have reasonably used a taxi but we had try several hospitals for a sciatic the previous and it had gotten worse. The ambulance said no need to apologize it’s the process here. Once your treatment started you can usually return to the same hospital by taxi or however you want
Why did you not call an ambulance? You call an ambulance. Hell if the hospitals had been nice they’d have called one for you.
In my experience, the Japanese healthcare system is *fantastic* for minor ailments but *absolutely shit* for anything beyond that.
Some doctors literally don’t care. I had a doctor tell me my symptoms were “*100% caused by*” X (disease/condition/virus etc.) and gave me medicine for that. I went back a week later saying the symptoms hadn’t gone away and that maybe it’s not what they said it was.
The doctor’s response was “*Hmmm well if it’s not X…. I’m not sure…. so what do you want me to do exactly?*”
The last bit is particularly jarring. Why on earth would a doctor ask *me* what I want them to do? I’m at the clinic because I don’t know how to fix the issue and I’m hoping the doctor will fix it for me. You know… the whole point of clinics and doctors in the first place.
May have been his way of simply trying to get rid of me because he wanted to keep the prescription conveyor belt going for that day, but if so, that’s just as bad because it *demonstrates that the doctor is more interested in profit margins than patient care*.
^((which kooiiiinda adds weight to the argument that healthcare should never be delivered by for-profit entities))