Japan Press Weekly

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2015 January 7 - 13 [WELFARE]

Democratic medical organizations call for increase in compensation for nursing-care facility operators

A national organization for democratic medical institutions on January 8 visited the finance and welfare ministries to submit a petition calling for a drastic increase in the amount of compensation for nursing-care facility operators.

In the petition, the Japan Federation of Democratic Medical Institutions (Min-iren) also urged the ministries to not impose further financial burdens on nursing-care service users and to secure the financial resources needed to improve nursing-care programs without relying on consumption tax revenues.

The submission of the petition took place as an urgent response to the Finance Ministry’s proposal at the end of 2014 for the amount of nursing-care compensation to be decreased by 6%.

At both ministries, Min-iren members cited serious staff shortages as the reason for the current hardships that nursing-care facilities across Japan are facing. They stressed that cuts in compensation would cause the discharge of more workers from the nursing-care industry and lead to the closure of many nursing-care homes.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Koika Akira, who joined the submission action, said, “It is irresponsible for the government to reduce nursing-care compensation while giving tax breaks to large corporations.”

A welfare ministry official said that the ministry will try to minimize the hardships of nursing-care service providers and that the petition will be passed on to the minister.