Over 10 inquiries required for hospital admissions in 734 Osaka cases

In at least 734 cases in Osaka in 2007, a minimum of 10 inquiries were required to locate hospitals to accept emergency patients, fire departments said in a Kyodo News survey conducted earlier this month. In refusing admissions, many hospitals said they were already treating other patients, their beds were full, or the patients' conditions did not match their specialties. In one example, a fire department had to make inquiries 64 times for a patient with a mental disease.
The annual number of cases that required fire departments to make at least five inquiries totaled more than 3,800 in both 2006 and 2007, highlighting the flaws in the emergency care system in the prefecture. The Osaka prefectural government is considering increasing the number of core hospitals in communities but is facing a shortage of doctors and hospital departments.