The Asahi newspaper reports this morning on a 69-year-old man who suffered a heart attack due to low blood-sugar levels and was refused admission to 9 hospitals within the Osaka prefecture and city area; it is understood that an hour and 20 minutes passed before the man was finally admitted to a public hospital in the city. The man is still receiving treatment. In March and October of this year there have been two cases of patients dying after being refused admission to 6 or 7 hospitals in the same area. The Regional Medical Treatment Union released a statement saying that ‘it is necessary to implement procedures to facilitate a system capable of receiving emergency patients without delay’.
According to the local fire service, there was a call from the patient’s house at about 11.45pm on 7th November. The ambulance arrived 6 minutes later. Ambulance medical staff suspected a stroke and radioed to hospitals in the city area but were refused due to services being ‘overstretched’. The tenth admission request was accepted and the man was admitted at 1.06am on 8th November.
