When her condition worsened, she called the public health center in Hyogo Prefecture for help, but she said no one answered her calls.
Instead, she had to isolate herself in her small bedroom, while her children, ages 3 and 6, slept alone in the living room for almost two weeks. Her mother went to deliver food to the family, but could not stay because the children were exposed to the virus, and they could not be tested for almost a week. Su said she communicated with her children via a tablet and that they could often hear them fighting.
“My little ones were trapped alone in the small living room without going outside for 10 days.” I felt sick, in a terrible state, but I felt more pain leaving my children alone. “
A representative from the Hyogo Prefecture Health Center could not speak directly to Su’s case, but said the holiday season was incredibly busy making contact with isolating patients.
But the Covid-19 pandemic has stretched the medical system to the brink as Japan begins to deal with the worst wave since the pandemic. Cases have more than doubled in the past two months to more than 406,000 cases.
And while the peak period of the current wave is over, with cases falling from more than 7,000 per day in January to less than 3,000 daily cases this month, the medical system is still under stress.
As of Feb. 4, more than 8,700 people in ten prefectures, which tested positive for Covid-19, were waiting for a hospital bed or space in an isolation center. The week before, more than 18,000 people were waiting in 11 prefectures, according to health departments.
Healthcare on tap
Despite the rapid increase in Japan in recent months, the number of infections and deaths is still pale compared to that in the US, where daily cases average more than 100,000.
But experts say health care expectations in Japan are different.
Since the 1960s, Japan’s universal health insurance system has provided coverage to all Japanese citizens – regardless of their income or existing conditions. But experts believe that easy access to care has led many patients to seek more care than necessary, and take the system for granted.
‘We consider (healthcare) something like tap water, but now the tens of thousands of people have to stay at home with Covid-19 and they do not have access to the healthcare system, they can not be admitted to hospital and they can not even see doctors, ‘says dr. Kentaro Iwata, professor and physician at Kobe University Hospital. “This is a very harsh reality, which is very difficult for many Japanese to accept.”
It is not uncommon for Covid-19 patients with severe symptoms in other countries to wait in hospital space, said Naoiki Ikegami, emeritus professor at Keio University.
But in earlier waves of the pandemic in Japan, most people who tested positive for Covid-19 were automatically admitted to the hospital, Ikegami said.
“This is how Covid-19 was treated in the first and second phases, so there is an expectation that anyone with Covid-19 will be admitted to the hospital, even if they have had only mild symptoms,” Ikegami said.
The system has meanwhile been adapted so that not everyone is admitted to hospital. Hospitalization rates for Covid-19 are still higher in Japan than in other countries.
System errors
Staff is another major problem in Japan’s medical system.
According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Japan has only 1,631 infectious disease specialists in 8,300 hospitals, which means that the majority of hospitals do not have an infectious disease specialist.
Unlike other nearby Asian territories such as China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, Japan was able to avoid it. previous coronavirus outbreaks, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS).
“A lot of infectious diseases did not come to Japan, so we did not prepare,” Iwata said.
“We did not train many specialists, we did not train the hospital wards, and we did not prepare the healthcare system for infections, and that is the result,” he said.
Across Japan, hundreds of public health care centers take calls from patients and guide them to medical care, monitor their health, test arrangements and contact traces.
Dr. Hideo Maeda, head of a public health center in Kita Ward, Tokyo, said its staff had quadrupled since the start of the pandemic, but it was still not enough. In his ward alone, dozens of patients wait in hospital space every day.
“A lot of staff work every day until midnight, on weekends and holidays,” Maeda said. “We are exhausted and overwhelmed – psychologically – with stress. Our staff have to make difficult decisions about people’s lives in a short period of time.”
A confusing reaction
In January, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga made a rare apology. “As the driver, I feel terribly sorry,” he said. “We could not provide the necessary care.”
His government is blamed for its slow and indecisive response to the pandemic. Suga rejected the need for a state of emergency at the end of December, only to declare one for Tokyo and several other prefectures next month. Prior to that, his administration encouraged domestic consumption with a “Go To” campaign, which gave Japanese citizens strong discounts on traveling and eating at home. This campaign was only suspended in December.
Kenji Shibuya, director of the Institute for Population Health at King’s College London, said Japan’s response was “too slow and confusing.”
Last week, the Japanese parliament approved two bills that give the government the power to fine violators of rules, including businesses that refuse to shorten hours and infected people who refuse to cooperate with health officials.
Under the new antivirus law, the government can also request hospitals to accept Covid-19 patients, or to name them publicly if they do not respond.
Most Covid-19 patients in Japan are treated by large public hospitals.
The government has yet to announce a timeline for the rest of its citizens. The vaccine will be voluntary and will convince people to receive it, a challenge in a country with a history of safety concerns and side effects concerns.
Earlier this week, it was announced that Japan would have to discard one in six doses of the Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine, of which they had ordered 144 million doses, as the country’s standard syringes could only extract 5 doses of the vaccine. each vial. Special syringes are needed to collect the sixth dose.
This is if the government can convince people to take the vaccine.
Su has now recovered from Covid-19, and saw the limits of the public health system during a pandemic.
She says she still has some symptoms, but she’s just thankful she can hold on to her kids again.
When her isolation ended, the first thing they said to her was, “Mom, please push me.”