Abstract
To shed a light on problems and areas of needs in health care services for foreign residents, this research focuses on identifying these problem areas that affect health care provision to foreign residents. This study was conducted in cooperation with an organization that provided everyday life support consultation to foreign resides in multiple languages at a Center for International Exchange. An analysis on contents of multi-lingual consultations provided by a foreign resident support organization in a major urban area identified these issues which are chosen from records of health related consultation cases which were selected from all everyday life support consultation records dating from April 2004 to March 2010. There were, in total, fifty-one health related consultation cases. Thirty one consultations were carried out in Japanese, issues that were caused by language barriers and cultural differences: communication problems, lack of information on health services and welfare services, difficulty in applying for benefits which resulted in the inability to pay medical costs and stress from unfamiliar work and life environment. Two elements of health service improvement would be “revised ways of information provision for the foreign residents” and “awareness of the multicultural society”.
Highlights
In recent years, migration of people has become more rapid and speedy around the world, and there is an increase in foreign residents in Japan as well
Many researches have been conducted and reported problems that stem from language and cultural differences which result in hindrance to accessing medical services
This study was conducted in cooperation with an organization that provided everyday life support consultation to foreign residents in multiple languages at the Center for International Exchange
Summary
Migration of people has become more rapid and speedy around the world, and there is an increase in foreign residents in Japan as well. The number of registered foreign residents in Japan amounted to over two million at the end of 2009. This is a sharp increase from 1,550,000, the figure from ten years before. The current trend in migration is an increasing number of permanent residents [1]. Medical services to foreign residents are no exceptions. Many researches have been conducted and reported problems that stem from language and cultural differences which result in hindrance to accessing medical services. Problems related to stages before accessing medical services have not yet been clarified
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