JAPAN / Science & Health

Tokyo hospitals to add five foreign doctors for expats

Maya McDonald tends the international desk at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward. The facility handles 1,800 to 2,000 visits by non-Japanese patients every month. | TOMOKO OTAKE

By Tomoko Otake
Staff Writer

Jul 19, 2015

The government will allow five non-Japanese doctors to practice at four hospitals in Tokyo from around December. Their patients will be limited to non-Japanese who agree to pay full costs themselves.

The move, proposed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and approved by the central government on June 29, is part of a "special zone" deregulation initiative spearheaded by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Currently, doctors from the U.S., the U.K., France and Singapore can practice in Japan without a Japanese medical license under bilateral agreements with those nations, but they can only see patients of their own nationality.

Tokyo hospitals to add five foreign doctors for expats

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