Some 2,000 doctors work unpaid at university hospitals in Japan

June 28, 2019

Tokyo--At least some 2,000 doctors at 50 university hospitals in Japan were seeing patients without getting paid as of September last year, an education ministry survey showed Friday.

According to the survey, 27 university hospitals did not pay salaries at all or partially to a total of 751 doctors despite the lack of rational reasons.

Some hospitals had doctors examine patients in order to help them hone their skills, while others had doctors work beyond the predetermined number of workdays.

A total of 35 hospitals said they have rational reasons for not remunerating 1,440 doctors but will start paying salaries to them, the survey also showed.

A combined 2,191 doctors will thus get paid for their work.

The survey asked all 108 national, municipal and private university hospitals across Japan to investigate the employment conditions of doctors, including dentists, as of September.

Meanwhile, 66 hospitals did not pay salaries to 3,594 doctors due to rational reasons, while seven hospital said they are looking into the situations concerning 1,304 doctors who were not paid.

The survey allowed the hospitals to judge whether their reasons for not paying salaries are rational or not, suggesting that there might be more doctors who were working unpaid without rational reasons.

The survey did not investigate whether the levels of salaries are reasonable.

The number of doctors working at the university hospitals, excluding teaching staff, came to 31,801. A total of 24,712 doctors at 104 hospitals were paid salaries.

The survey also showed that university hospitals did not have employment contracts with 1,630 doctors although there were no rational reasons. A total of 1,705 doctors were not covered by workers' compensation insurance.

With a view to cutting costs, university hospitals are believed to have used training and other reasons as the pretext for having young doctors, such as trainee doctors and doctors in graduate courses, see patients without salaries.

In 2008, after the problematic employment conditions of young doctors came to light, the education ministry instructed university hospitals to conclude employment contracts with doctors in graduate courses. In 2013, the ministry said such doctors were no longer seeing patients without employment contracts. Jiji Press