20 Pct of Hospital Doctors in Japan at Risk of Overwork Death

From Jiji

August 28 2023

TOKYO  – About 20 pct of doctors at hospitals in Japan are believed to be working overtime for more than 960 hours a year, equivalent to the 80-hours-per-month threshold for being at risk of death from overwork, a survey by a health ministry research team found.

In the survey, conducted in July 2022, responses were collected from 19,879 doctors at 5,424 hospitals across the country. Of them, weekly working conditions for 11,466 full-time doctors were analyzed.

The survey showed that 20.4 pct of the full-time doctors worked over 60 hours per week, exceeding the weekly legal working hours of 40 hours to put estimated overtime at over 960 hours per year.

Doctors working in neurosurgery departments were most likely to work over the threshold, with 36.6 pct of them doing so, followed by those in emergency departments, at 32.3 pct, those in surgical departments, at 29.7 pct, and those in obstetrics and gynecology departments, at 28.0 pct.

The survey also found that the widespread practice of working long hours was being corrected thanks to work-style reforms. The proportion of doctors with long working hours decreased from the previous survey in 2019.