Japan Press Weekly

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2013 December 18 - 24 [TOKYO]

Ishihara also has close ties with Tokushukai

Deep connections also exist between former Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro and hospital operator Tokushukai which was found to have given 50 million yen to Tokyo Governor Inose Naoki.

Ishihara, who announced his resignation and won a House of Representatives seat in 2012, reportedly advised his successor Inose to give up his post after his acceptance of the allegedly illegal donation was uncovered.

Right after Ishihara became the governor of Tokyo in 1999, he said in a conversation with Tokuda Torao, the founder and former head of Tokushukai Group, cited in the monthly magazine “Shincho” (December 1999), “Tokushukai is the only respectable major hospital in Japan.” He also told Tokuda, “Why don’t you open a hospital in Tokyo?”
　
Tokuda responded to Ishihara by saying, “If Tokyo has to spend 15 billion yen to build a public hospital, all I need is 7.5 billion or 6 billion yen.” He added, “For better operations, hospitals must be privatized.”

In December 2001, Governor Ishihara launched a major project to “reform” Tokyo’s public hospitals, including the closure of three public hospitals for children and the privatization of other public hospitals.

Tokushukai established its first hospital in Tokyo in Akishima City in 2005. It plans to open another one in Nishitokyo City in February 2015.

Also in Nishitokyo City, the hospital operator built a healthcare facility for the elderly in May 2012. It received 749.7 million yen in a subsidy for the construction of the facility from the Tokyo government in FY 2010.

In February this year, a former close aide of Tokuda released a report on the hospital operator he had worked for which claims that Tokushukai gave Ishihara “hundreds of millions of yen” when he was the Tokyo governor.