Speaking at a press conference, Kishida said the government will accelerate the vaccination drive, with about 8 million health care and nursing care workers targeted for fourth shots.
While the number of visitors to donation rooms are almost at target levels despite the pandemic, there has been a spate of cancellations of offers to accept donation buses, due to concerns about the infection spread.
Under the revised medical service law, which was enacted in May 2021, extra work for hospital doctors will be limited at 960 hours a year in principle. For doctors for whom long work hours are unavoidable due to reasons including services at emergency medical centers, the upper limit on annual overtime will be set at 1,860 hours.
The study suggests that because dog and cat owners take more regular exercise and have closer social relationships than non-owners, the onset of disability is delayed as older adults who were currently dog owners had a significantly lower odds ratio of onset of disability.
The government will dispatch nurses to Tokyo and Osaka from public hospitals, Kishida said in separate meetings with Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura.
Doctors say they are stretched almost to breaking point and that seeing more patients has become increasingly difficult. Japan reported a record 62,610 new infections on Tuesday, topping 60,000 for the first time.
An experiment is being carried out in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture, to demonstrate a service that would allow users to use a single app to make cab reservations and arrange for vehicles to be automatically driven around hospitals so that elderly people and people with disabilities who have difficulty getting around can visit medical institutions smoothly.
New anorexia cases among people younger than 20 in Japan grew 60 pct from the previous year in fiscal 2020 amid the novel coronavirus crisis, a survey by the National Center for Child Health and Development showed Thursday.
“Stress and anxiety stemming from school closures due to the pandemic and other reasons might have affected them,” the center said.
A man who had been admitted to a Japanese Defense Ministry-run hospital died in 2015 without receiving prompt treatment as his medical information was not shared, relatives and officials said Wednesday.
Delayed visits to hospitals due to the coronavirus crisis have boosted the number of heart infarction patients developing serious complications fourfold, according to a team of Japanese researchers.
Barrier Free Japan