The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has asked prefectural governments and other entities to establish a two-stage medical care system to prepare for another surge in infections with the novel coronavirus.
The ministry on Wednesday asked them to establish health care systems to handle both normal times and emergencies, and to temporarily switch to the latter and secure hospital beds by restricting general medical care in the event of a sharp increase in infections, such as when the number of infected people doubled at the peak of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The request calls for plans to be drawn up by the end of April to secure hospital beds during an emergency, particularly with the spread of variants believed to be highly infectious in mind. The ministry says general medical care can be restricted by temporarily postponing nonurgent surgeries and hospitalization, for example, in the event that the number of beds for COVID-19 patients needs to be increased significantly.
The ministry asked that the health monitoring system for home care patients be strengthened, to prepare for situations where people at risk of becoming seriously ill cannot be hospitalized. Providing staff support to prefectures and public health centers working to coordinate hospitalization and hospital transfers will also be considered.
The operational system for normal times will also be reviewed by May. The ministry will study the division of roles among medical institutions in each region to provide general medical care while further increasing the number of beds for COVID-19 patients.
There have been cases where local governments and medical institutions did not cooperate well, failing to effectively utilize hospital beds during the third wave of the pandemic. To avoid this, the number of patients waiting to be hospitalized or transferred to other hospitals will be checked regularly to prevent coronavirus treatment from "clogging up."
To quickly switch to the emergency system, the maximum number of infected people under which the normal medical care system can be maintained will be calculated in advance. The ministry will consider when to transfer to the emergency system by regularly estimating the number of people likely to be infected two weeks into the future.
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