Photo/Illutration A COVID-19 patient receives treatment in an intensive care unit at Nagoya University Hospital on Jan. 20. (Provided by Nagoya University Hospital)

Delays in finding hospitals that can accept emergency patients appear to be easing around Japan, but overworked and weary ambulance medics remain fearful that they could cause accidents on the roads.

According to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, there were 5,998 cases during the week from Jan. 16 to Jan. 22 in which ambulance attendants were rejected by at least three medical organizations and had to wait for more than 30 minutes to find one that could accept their patient.

The figure was significantly down from the record high 8,161 such cases reported over the previous week.

But the 5,998 figure remains higher than average and is up by 18 percent compared with the same period a year ago.

The agency has collected weekly records of such cases since April 2020, after the COVID-19 pandemic hit Japan, from 52 major firefighting headquarters nationwide.

Agency officials said the current eighth wave of novel coronavirus infections has clogged up hospitals. There has also been an increase in non-COVID emergency requests because socio-economic activities have been returning to normal.

Some ambulance crews are finding no time to take a break and are afraid that they might dose off at the wheel, the agency said.

The situation has been severe in Nagoya.

“It is notable that more and more hospitals have restricted or suspended the taking in of emergency patients,” a member of the Nagoya City Fire Bureau’s ambulance team said. “I think hospitals are all tied up, too.”

He said his crew members recently have had to call at least five medical care organizations to find a place to transport their patient.

Previously, they spent less than an hour for each emergency case. But now, it sometimes takes two hours or longer, he said.

The Nagoya bureau responded to more than 146,000 emergency calls in 2022, a record high.

The number of emergency cases in the city that required more than three calls to medical centers and a 30-minute wait started increasing around late November.

During the week from Jan. 9 through Jan. 15, a record high 316 such cases were reported in Nagoya.

On Jan. 10, one ambulance crew made 32 calls and had to wait for 227 minutes to find a place that could take in a male emergency patient.

ADDITIONAL SAFETY CONCERNS

In Akishima, western Tokyo, an ambulance of Tokyo Fire Department hit a center divider and overturned after the driver nodded off.

The ambulance crew had worked 17 hours straight without a break before the accident, which caused minor injuries.

“It is a matter of time before I cause an accident,” said an ambulance driver in his 20s in Kanagawa Prefecture.

He said that since the eighth wave of infections started, he has usually worked nonstop for 15 hours from 8:30 a.m.

His crew generally responds to 10 to 12 ambulance requests a day, he said.

“I have little sleep. My heart is racing, and I feel that my life is shortening when I drive,” he said.

ICU BEDS FILL UP

The Nagoya University Hospital currently has about 30 beds for ICU patients, including those with COVID-19. The beds have almost always been full in the eighth wave.

Since December, the hospital has increasingly been forced to turn down requests from ambulance staff, Takanori Yamamoto, a doctor at the emergency department, said.

During the year-end and New Year holiday period, the hospital had to deny five to six emergency requests a day.

Yamamoto said that with the aging of the population, the number of emergency requests was rising even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, he is also worried that overburdened medical staff will quit.

“It has been a given that if you call for an ambulance, it will immediately take you to a hospital,” Yamamoto said. “But that can no longer be taken for granted.”

(This article was written by Hirohisa Yamashita, Emi Iwata and Ayami Ko.)

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