As Japan faces a fresh wave of coronavirus infections and the government prepares for a state of emergency, medical staff say a shortage of beds and a rise in cases linked to hospitals are pushing Tokyo's medical system to the brink of collapse.
TOKYO - As Japan faces a fresh wave of coronavirus infections and the government prepares for a state of emergency, medical staff say a shortage of beds and a rise in cases linked to hospitals are pushing Tokyo’s medical system to the brink of collapse.
More than 60 patients with the virus are still being treated inside. One person who was transferred to another hospital infected others, according to health officials in Tokyo’s Taito ward. Even as other countries have locked down borders and ramped up testing, Japan appeared to have side-stepped the kind of mass infections seen elsewhere - an effect some experts say was mostly due to a lack of testing. In the early stages of the epidemic, Japan was also weighing whether to postpone the Summer Olympics, a decision that eventually came in late March.
With cases surging, officials said, some who tested positive have had to briefly wait at home or in outpatient sections of hospitals until beds became available. Koike said on Sunday that to ease the burden on medical staff, Tokyo would transfer people with mild symptoms into hotels and other accommodations starting Tuesday.
A representative for the Tokyo government said Monday that “the medical system remains secure,” adding that Tokyo was continuing to urge residents to avoid all unnecessary outings.Contagion is an enormous risk in dense Tokyo, a city of nearly 14 million people. Japan also has one of world’s oldest populations, with nearly a third of the country - 36 million people - older than 65.
“There isn’t that much capacity left in Tokyo, so a is no longer unforeseeable,” said Satoshi Kamayachi, an executive board member of the Japan Medical Association, which has pushed Japan to call for a state of emergency. “The number of patients is clearly rising, so the situation is becoming more urgent.”Even after Japan drew fire for how it handled patients on the cruise ship Diamond Princess, it did little to step up testing and preparations, some critics say.
A half-dozen nurses working at clinics and mid-sized Tokyo hospitals said that they had been told to reuse masks and were concerned about having enough staff to deal with a surge. Several doctors said they had been told not to discuss the capacity of their hospitals with the media.
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