The Central Social Insurance Medical Council of the health and welfare ministry has determined the amount of rewards to be paid to medical institutions beginning in April. It should be praised for making efforts to improve the working conditions of hospital doctors.
Still, there is room for improvement in rewarding medical institutions that provide medical services to patients staying at home, as the government is pushing a policy of increasing the weight of medical services given to such patients.
As part of this policy, providing nursing-care services any time of day for elderly people at home has been introduced. This approach is makes sense as hospitals cannot deliver all the services needed by the growing population of elderly people. A concealed aim is to cut costs by increasing home-based medical and nursing-care services.