September 1, 2024

Japanese Communist Party Secretariate Head Koike Akira, M.D., at a meeting of medical professionals in Yokohama City on August 31 to which he was invited, spoke about medical/nursing-care issues, diplomacy, and a future society.

Koike called on the participants to join the JCP to improve the serious situation in the medical and nursing-care field by building a stronger party. Responding to Koike’s call, five medical workers decided to join the party that day.

Koike in his talk said that remuneration for home nursing-care services has been reduced, and that 36.7% of care providers have been in the red. He stressed the need to get the government to change its policy to prevent further nursing-care institutions’ bankruptcies caused by the remuneration cuts.

Koike noted that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its partner Komei Party had pledged in their past campaign promises to increase public spending to curb the rise in nursing-care insurance premiums. He pointed out that if the government injects one trillion yen to raise the public expenditure rate by 10%, it will be able to boost nursing-care workers’ wages to the same level as the average wage for workers in all industries without increasing insurance premiums. He said that this will be entirely possible by redirecting part of the military budget of eight trillion yen into the nursing-care area.