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Well, of course, the devil may lay in the details. Anecdotes follow... My wife had a medical emergency in Tokyo on New Years day 2018. We learned the hard way
by scruple 8y ago
Well, of course, the devil may lay in the details. Anecdotes follow...
My wife had a medical emergency in Tokyo on New Years day 2018. We learned the hard way that if it's not __direly life threatening in that exact moment__ that you __will not__ be given care. You'll be told to come back on the 3rd when services re-open. We got __very__ lucky and she was able to be seen as the literal last patient at an urgent care that we got in to contact with through the concierge at a previous hotel we had stayed at (a very expensive hotel we stayed at for a few nights but were not current guests with).
The __extremely__ distraught looking Australian man with a Japanese girl alongside him, looking for the morning after pill? They were turned away. A Japanese man who had been __hit by a taxi and could barely walk__ was turned away. We saw a few other cases turned away that day and I genuinely felt bad that these people could not, or would not, be seen but that my wife would. It was eye opening, to say the least.
We rounded out our trip in Roppongi and talked to some expats who said that was the standard fare. Get hurt on or around major holidays and you'll be fending for yourself, that was the signal.
- enqk 8y agoNew Year is really the only special time where everything's closed in japan though..