November 21, 2020

The government spent only 20% or 520 billion yen of three trillion yen allocated to help medical institutions survive the corona crisis. This was revealed in materials which Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira (House of Councilors member) obtained from the Health Ministry.

Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide on October 30 at an Upper House plenary meeting in response to Koike boasted that the government used three trillion yen to provide financial support to medical facilities. However, the Health Ministry’s materials showed that as of the end of October, the government spent only 520 billion yen for financial aid which includes subsidies for medical facilities to set up special wards for COVID-19 patients.

Many medical facility operators are experiencing financial difficulties caused by the pandemic. In addition, there are some operators seeking to slash winter bonuses for their workers. This has generated concerns that under this circumstance, more and more medial workers would resign despite chronic labour shortages in their workplaces.

Medical organizations are calling on the government to dispurse the three trillion yen in funds without delay. Furthermore, as a measure to compensate for a loss of earnings, they seek to push the government to pay all medical facilities the same amount of state remuneration for medical services as that paid last year.

Past related articles:
> JCP Koike: 400 nurses will resign due to cancellation of their seasonal bonus despite their fight against COVID-19 [July 3, 2020]
> Gov't support for medical system grossly insufficient [April 23, 2020]