Japan Press Weekly

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2022 March 23 - 29 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

LDP, Komei, & ‘Tomin’ party force through ordinance bill to abolish Tokyo-run hospitals in defiance of 350K signatures

The Liberal Democratic Party, the Komei Party, the “Nippon Ishin no Kai” party, and the "Tomin First no Kai" party whose founder is Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko used their majority to bulldoze through an ordinance bill to change metropolitan and publicly-run hospitals into something akin to private hospitals on March 25 at the plenary meeting of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly.

The Japanese Communist Party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, and the “Seikatsusha Net” voted against the bill.

Later on the same day, JCP Tokyo Metropolitan Assemblymembers’ Group Secretary General Izumi Naomi issued a comment criticizing the LDP, the Komei party, the Ishin party, and the Tomin party for disregarding more than 350,000 signatures demanding that metropolitan and publicly-run hospitals be maintained as they are.

Izumi in her comment pointed out that discussions in the metropolitan assembly revealed that the true aim of the ordinance bill is to reduce the Tokyo government’s overall spending on metropolitan hospitals and Tokyo-funded hospitals. She continued to point out that it also became clear that there is no need to abolish metropolitan and publicly-run hospitals which play an important role in dealing with the pandemic and in providing unprofitable but necessary medical services. She said that the JCP together with Tokyo citizens will work even harder to prevent the implementation of the newly-enacted ordinance and protect the current public healthcare system in Tokyo.

Past related article:
> LDP, Komei, and 'Tomin' party abolish metropolitan hospitals, turning them into for-profit bodies　 [March 16-18, 2022]