Emergency Medicine in Japan

In Annals of Emergency Medicine, Oct 2001, pg 441-446     notes by Henry Lahore 10/14/01

Fire departments provide the Japanese emergency transportation system using crews of 2 or 3 people.

52% of all runs arrived at the scene between 5 and 10 minutes. 

The 13,400 paramedics do not operate as independently as in the US: for example, the only medication the Japanese paramedics are permitted to administer is oxygen.

Japanese clinics and hospitals may refuse to accept patients if there is an ‘appropriate reason’ (such as staff shortages, lack of adequate equipment or personnel, or the expectation of severe financial burden).

A 1974 report (the most recent) showed that refusals occurred in 40% of the time, with 0.5% of the transports being refused by 10 or more clinics/hospitals.

“The prehospital care in unfortunately nothing more than poor compared with that in western countries”