Revista de Enfermagem e Cuidados

The Obstacle to Health Care of Foreign Residents in Japan

Abstract

Sakiko Kanbara and Kazuya Susa

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”.