Editor’s Note: I believe many readers have had the experience of taking their children to see a doctor. Do you have endless complaints about the current medical system? If you like to seek novelty, please follow the author of this article to see the experience of seeing a doctor under the foreign medical system. After reading it, you think of what?
When I immigrated to Japan a few years ago, my daughter was just over 2 years old, weak and sick, so I had the most experience of Japan’s health care system, and I still took my children to see a doctor. Because I have been a doctor in China, there are many interesting places to look at Japan’s children’s health care from the perspective of doctors.
First, there is no standard for children to see a doctor.
Japan does not have a strict household registration system. Nationals and foreigners legally residing in Japan, As long as you have an address, you can register your household registration in any city in Japan. Moreover, the address mentioned here, It is not required to be real estate under my name, Renting a house can also log in to the household registration. A sensational news story earlier was that a divorced mother asked to log in to the balcony of an Internet cafe. The staff of the Internet cafe also promised to hand over the letters from the municipal government on her behalf. After some negotiations, she succeeded and was cited as a precedent by many places: renting a box in the Internet cafe is much cheaper than renting a house, and no deposit is required. As a result, the Internet cafe became the first choice for Japanese homeless people to log in to their household registration.
Under such a system, Of course, there can be no regional differences in Japan’s national medical insurance. Moreover, medical insurance covers not only its own nationals, As long as they are legally resident in Japan, All of them are covered by NHS, Even because foreign students usually earn a low income, The insurance premium is paid very little, However, the benefits are exactly the same as those of their own nationals. For example, when foreign students give birth to children, they enjoy the same subsidy of about 30,000 RMB as their own nationals, 12,000 RMB per month for living expenses during lactation and 600 RMB per month for children before their children reach adulthood. What’s more, their children are ill and the fees are cheaper than those of ordinary Japanese.
This makes it necessary to mention Japan’s unique scale fee system for children’s medical treatment. When the child is ill, One outpatient visit or one day in hospital, All-inclusive medical care is a quota, The specific amount is based on the family’s annual income last year, with less income and more income. Foreign students generally have a low income and are usually set as 0 yuan. As Japanese medical institutions directly settle accounts with national insurance institutions, they do not even need to take cash to the hospital. Foreign students may not even know how much they spend to see their children.
After working, The price of children’s medical treatment rises with the increase of family income, In other words, In Japan, there is no uniform charging standard for how much children spend on medical treatment. It is usually at the level of 100-200 yen (6-12 RMB) once or a day. If it exceeds 300 yen (18 RMB), Then the income of this family last year must be relatively high, Over 20, The average income level of 30-year-olds. This fee is so low that, It is so low that parking fees for taking children to see a doctor are usually higher than medical expenses. Moreover, it is said that the reason why Japanese women have to pay this few hundred yen is that Japanese women usually resign to become professional housewives after marriage. If it is completely free, they will use the hospital as a health center to take their children to play every day, not to mention the amount of national insurance payment, and doctors have to be tired.
Second, the scattered small clinics received more than 99% of the newly diagnosed children.
In addition to emergency treatment, Children who do not have a letter of introduction from a primary doctor are generally not accepted. This ensures that more than 99% of the first visits are completed in small clinics. Because of the limited personnel conditions in small clinics, Large-scale examination programs must be introduced to general hospitals. This also ensures that critically ill children can receive appropriate treatment: In fact, Doctors in small clinics in Japan are generally very cautious, Children with diarrhea to a degree of obvious dehydration, Or children with colds are tested to be hemolytic streptococcal infection (which may turn into severe diseases such as septicemia, rheumatic heart disease, glomerulonephritis, etc.), and even if the existing symptoms are not serious, they will be transferred to a general hospital. Basically, small pediatric clinics only give children drugs and seldom give children infusion. Children who need infusion are usually transferred to hospital.
Grass-roots clinics are scattered all over Japan, Tokyo and its surrounding satellite cities such as Saitama, Chiba et al., Usually there is a small clinic within 15 minutes’ walk. In addition to taking care of a large number of newly diagnosed children, The small clinic is also responsible for all the vaccination tasks, Interestingly, Contrary to China, the initial consultation of children is conducted by nurses in Japan, and the vaccination needle is actually done by doctors themselves. The national plan vaccination program is also completely free of charge and directly settled by medical units and national medical insurance institutions, so if your child goes to the clinic for vaccination, it can be completely free of cash.
However, taking her daughter to see a doctor in Japan, My greatest feeling is that, Children in Japan use very little antibiotics, Infusion is even less. Apart from green pus and nasal mucus, which may prescribe some oral antibiotics, In the rest of the case, even if the fever is as high as 40 degrees, Neither transfusions nor antibiotics, Just take some drugs to control runny nose and cough symptoms, Fever is also mainly due to physical and oral drugs to reduce fever. In Chinese pediatricians, such demands as “children have fever and inject some liquid” are completely inaudible to Japanese mothers. Even if there are a few foreign mothers’ requests, they will be directly ignored by Japanese doctors.
To say what I admire most about Japan’s children’s health care system, It’s the Japanese pharmacy. They usually follow the doctor’s prescription, For example, drugs to control runny nose and cough were prescribed respectively. They will mix the powder to reduce the number of times children take the medicine, and will adjust the color and taste of the medicine. For example, my daughter’s medicine is usually pink and strawberry taste that girls like, so that when children are not ill, they also clamor to take the medicine. The problem of difficult taking of the medicine for children basically does not exist in Japan.
Author: Xie Renan