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CNA
6 days ago
- Health
- CNA
Gaia Series 95: Shortage of nurses in the medical field
Japanese hospitals buckle under pressure as chronic understaffing forces nurses to choose between duty and wellbeing. A national healthcare crisis is unfolding in Japan, as hospitals struggle to retain nursing staff in the face of growing workloads and stagnant wages. In this episode, viewers witness a deeply personal and systemic challenge that has driven nurses to the edge. With over 1,000 hospitals and care facilities joining a nationwide strike, the voices of frontline healthcare workers are no longer silent. At the National Tokyo Medical Centre, the headquarters of Japan's largest hospital group, nurses take to the streets alongside their peers in Fukuoka and Sendai. For one hour, they walk out to demand higher wages and better staffing levels. The coordinated strike is unprecedented in scope, involving institutions across the country. 'I can't help but feel that our work as medical professionals is being undervalued,' says one nurse. 'It's a bit sad. That's honestly how I feel.' In response, Health Minister Takamaro Fukuoka acknowledges the problem. 'We recognise there's a serious staff shortage in medical settings,' he says. 'We've implemented measures to raise productivity and improve the working environment to support further wage increases.' However, promises of reform may be too little too late. A 2020 Ministry of Health report estimated Japan had 1.73 million nursing staff. By 2025, a shortfall of up to 270,000 is projected. The episode shows that this future has already arrived. At Nishiyodo Hospital in Osaka, 30 nurses resigned in a single year, pushing remaining staff to their limits. The hospital has 218 beds and about 160 nurses. Night shifts are sometimes covered by just two nurses and one care worker overseeing an entire rehabilitation ward of 60 patients. Senior nurse Haruka Iyonaga, now in her fifteenth year of service, voices the strain. She also oversees the shift rota, a task that has become increasingly difficult. 'Regarding the number of nurses, we really do need more nurses,' she says. 'Otherwise, it's just too hard.' Ms Iyonaga, also a mother, often works late into the evening before rushing to pick up her two-year-old daughter. 'I try to leave as early as I can,' she says, 'but still some staff remain late on-site. So I try to do what I can before leaving, just to help out.' She often exceeds the standard limit of two night shifts per month for parents, instead taking on about four. Her junior, Ms Futatsuki, articulates the emotional cost. 'We are just chasing tasks, day after day. By the end of the shift, it feels meaningless. All that's left is exhaustion.' These feelings are echoed by others at the hospital, where the inability to hire new staff leaves existing nurses overworked and demoralised. Hospital management is not blind to the issue. Head of Nursing Yukako Kodama, who has served at Nishiyodo Hospital for 30 years, admits that the current staffing model is unsustainable. 'The staffing system has been critically short and chronically lacking,' she says. 'As a management team, we feel truly sorry for that.' Further strain comes from a change in the national medical fee system. Nishiyodo Hospital does not perform surgeries, so revisions that devalued internal medicine fees have led to a projected loss of about 30 million yen (S$264,000) annually. 'We can no longer allocate our budget for hiring nurses,' says Ms Kodama, who is visibly emotional when reflecting on the nurses who left. 'Even now, I wonder what could I have done differently?' To stabilise operations, the hospital begins assigning dedicated night-shift nurses. Mr Yusuke Matsuki is the first to take on this role. 'It's only just begun, but I'm not finding it hard,' he says. 'I don't mind night shifts.' With an additional allowance of over 6,000 yen per shift, the new model brings some relief to daytime staff, though it is only a partial fix. While experienced nurses struggle, new ones are in short supply. Enrolment at Nanao Nursing School has dropped dramatically. 'When I entered, it was still competitive,' says Year 3 teacher Sachiko Nakamae. 'But now, we're nowhere near full capacity anymore.' The 2023 Noto Peninsula earthquake further reduced applicant numbers. And the nursing school enrolments nationwide prove it: In 2018, at its peak, there were 67,026 students; in 2024, there were only 56,142. Despite these challenges, students like Kurea Otsumi remain committed. 'I had planned to return to Wajima, so I took out a student loan,' says Ms Otsumi, 21. She passes her national exam and begins work at Wajima Hospital. 'I want to gain skills and knowledge and become a nurse that people can trust,' she says. Class representative Ryusei Satake shares a similar motivation. 'During the earthquake, I was in an evacuation shelter. I saw disaster nurses up close and thought I wanted to be one too.' After passing his exam, he joins the emergency department at Nippon Medical School Hospital. 'I feel like I've taken a small step towards my dream of joining DMAT,' he says, referring to the Disaster Medical Assistance Team. From resignations and strikes to hope and determination, this episode captures a profession at a crossroads. As one trainee reflects after receiving a thank-you letter from a patient, 'It read, 'You were my angel during my hospital stay.' It made me so happy. Even though people say it's a tough job, moments like that make me want to become a nurse.'
Asahi Shimbun
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Asahi Shimbun
Fact check: Do foreigners get preferential treatment?
Editor's note: The Asahi Shimbun has established new election coverage guidelines and set up a section for fact checking, including information posted on social media, during campaigns. The newspaper conducts fact checks to determine the veracity of comments made by politicians and social media posts in which the truth may be difficult to immediately confirm. *** Polarizing information has been circulating on the internet and elsewhere during the July 20 Upper House campaign that accuses foreign nationals of receiving preferential treatment over Japanese nationals for welfare benefits. As an example, in a video posted on an anonymous X account on June 23, a personality was 'furious' and claimed that 'foreigners are given preferential treatment in welfare' as the reason. The post had been viewed more than 2.85 million times by July 15. In Upper House election campaigning, some political parties and candidates have voiced similar concerns. The minor opposition Sanseito party, in particular, has stated in its policy that it will suspend welfare payments to foreigners. To rebut such rumors, welfare minister Takamaro Fukuoka denied that the government was providing favorable treatment to foreign residents in medical or welfare benefits at a news conference on July 15. The welfare ministry's division that is in charge of welfare administration told The Asahi Shimbun that there is no preferential treatment under the system. For foreign nationals living in Japan to receive welfare benefits, their assets and level of need are investigated in the same manner as Japanese nationals. Some foreign nationals may not be eligible to receive welfare depending on their residence status. NUMBERS SHOW MINOR DISCREPANCY As part of a fact-checking exercise, The Asahi Shimbun examined how many households are actually on welfare. Using the results of the 2020 census, it calculated the percentage of households receiving benefits by nationality of the head of household. As a result, of the 54.35 million households headed by a Japanese national, 1.57 million households, or 2.89 percent, were receiving welfare benefits. Of the 1.36 million households headed by a foreign national, 46,000 households, or 3.36 percent, were being given welfare assistance. By nationality of the head of household, there were 29,000 households headed by a South Korean or North Korean national on welfare. The figure accounted for 14.43 percent of the total number of households headed by a South Korean or North Korean national. There were 5,700 households headed by a Chinese national on the welfare rolls. The figure accounted for 1.62 percent of the total number of households headed by a Chinese national. There were 5,100 recipient households headed by a Filipino, accounting for 5.41 percent of the total number of households headed by that nationality. There were 1,700 households headed by Brazilians receiving welfare assistance, which accounted for 2.17 percent of the total number of households headed by that nationality. Of all households receiving welfare benefits, including those whose head of household is Japanese, elderly households accounted for 56 percent. However, when looking at households headed by a South Korean or North Korean national, the percentage was even higher, numbering 68 percent. Among all households receiving welfare assistance, including households headed by a Japanese national, 4.43 percent were single-mother households. However, among households headed by Filipino nationals, the percentage was significantly higher, at 48.41 percent. Atsushi Yoshinaga, a professor at Hanazono University who is an expert on welfare administration, said, 'The high percentage of elderly households headed by South Korean and North Korean residents in Japan receiving welfare benefits is due to the fact that for a long time in Japan, foreign nationals have been systematically excluded from joining the national pension system, resulting in a large number of people with low pensions.' He also said, 'Many Filipinos are impoverished women who have divorced their Japanese spouses and have children.' 'In both cases, there are historical reasons and it makes sense to allow them to continue receiving social welfare,' he said. MINISTRY CONDUCTS INVESTIGATION The Public Assistance Law stipulates that all citizens in need who are Japanese nationals are eligible to receive welfare. In the case of foreign nationals, in consideration of fairness to Japanese nationals, eligibility is limited to permanent residents who can work freely in Japan, spouses of Japanese nationals, other permanent residents including third-generation overseas immigrants of Japanese descent, special permanent residents such as Korean residents in Japan, and people who have been certified as refugees. Those who are in Japan on visas that restrict their employment, such as student visas, technical intern visas and specified skilled worker visas, are not eligible. Welfare benefits are doled out on a household basis. According to the ministry, the screening process for eligibility is conducted based on the same criteria, regardless of the nationality of the head of the household. Applicants are investigated to determine if they are able to work and if they have any assets. If there are assets, they must be converted into cash and used for living expenses. In the case of foreign nationals, to prevent them from entering Japan just for receiving welfare assistance, the circumstances that led to their impoverishment along with information about the guarantor they provided when they obtained their visa will be subject to investigation.
16-07-2025
- Health
Japan Says Taking Strict Fentanyl Countermeasures
News from Japan Politics Jul 15, 2025 22:03 (JST) Tokyo, July 15 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said Tuesday that Japan is taking thorough measures against fentanyl, noting that Japanese customs have not uncovered any attempts to smuggle the synthetic opioid through the country in the past six years. Health minister Takamaro Fukuoka and Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato also mentioned fentanyl in separate press conferences on the day. Fukuoka said that, unlike in Europe and the United States, the drug has not spread in Japan. Kato said that Japan is working closely with the United States and other countries on the matter. The ministers' remarks followed media reports that a Chinese organization is suspected of being involved in fentanyl-related exports from Japan to the United States. "Following these reports, the prime minister's office issued instructions to explain domestic measures against the drug," a government source said. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Jiji Press
Asahi Shimbun
16-07-2025
- Health
- Asahi Shimbun
Health minister debunks rumors about favoring foreign residents
Health minister Takamaro Fukuoka denied the government was giving favorable treatment to foreign residents in medical or welfare services, a rumor that has spread during the Upper House election campaign. At a news conference on July 15, Fukuoka dismissed three online posts as false. One was that the number of Chinese welfare recipients has doubled in five years. Another claimed that the amount of national health insurance premiums unpaid by foreigners has reached 400 billion yen ($2.7 billion) a year. As of July 2023, 9,471 individuals were in households on welfare headed by Chinese nationals, up about 400 from five years earlier, Fukuoka said. The amount of unpaid national health insurance premiums totaled 145.7 billion yen in fiscal 2022, including those owed by Japanese, according to Fukuoka. The third bogus post has claimed that the High-Cost Medical Expense Benefit system, which keeps out-of-pocket medical expenses to a certain level even when patients receive high-cost health care, is preferential treatment to foreign residents. Non-Japanese residents, including those working or studying in Japan for more than three months, are eligible to medical fee caps if they pay national health insurance premiums. As of the end of fiscal 2023, about 970,000 foreign residents were required to subscribe to the national health insurance program, or 4 percent of the total that includes Japanese. However, payments to foreign residents under the High-Cost Medical Expense Benefit system accounted for 1.21 percent of the total. 'We are not aware that the percentage of foreign recipients is high,' Fukuoka said. (This article was written by Ayami Ko and Natsumi Adachi.)
Japan Today
16-07-2025
- Health
- Japan Today
Japan sees no widespread fentanyl abuse: health minister
Japan does not currently face widespread fentanyl abuse, the health minister said, amid growing international concern over misuse of the deadly opioid in the United States and Europe. Takamaro Fukuoka said at a press conference that customs authorities had not intercepted any fentanyl over the six years through last year, while pledging to continue working with other countries to crack down on the illegal trade of the drug. Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller that has been linked to a surge in overdose deaths, is used legally in Japan as a medical narcotic, primarily for cancer patients. The drug has drawn global attention for its potency and the risk of death when misused. The health ministry released a nationwide notice in late June instructing retailers and handlers of precursor chemicals to strengthen compliance and oversight in response to mounting reports of synthetic drug misuse. Fentanyl, meanwhile, has emerged as a key issue in U.S. tariff negotiations, as President Donald Trump has decided to impose high levies on some nations, criticizing them for insufficient efforts to prevent the flow of the drug into his country. © KYODO
