00:00:05 John Daub: Welcome to a Japanese hospital. This here that you see in front of you is called Showa University Koto Toyosu Hospital. It looks really new. Actually, it is new. It's a beautiful hospital in Tokyo. And I just went there and I wanted to explain this experience with you. How are you doing, everybody? I wanted to explain the experience of going to a Japanese hospital a little bit. Some of the things that don't make any sense whatsoever, and some of them they absolutely do. Maybe this will help some people that get sick and need to go to a Japanese hospital.

00:00:39 John Daub: Today is actually a holiday, so we can't go to a clinic. And there's lots of clinics in front of Japanese train stations and in other areas, even in rural areas. You'll find a clinic, a small little hospital that you go to. That's your first step always if you're sick to go to one of these clinics where they're going to give you a referral or a note or something. Then see a specialist. Now today, all those clinics are closed. In fact, they've been closed for like four days. And I had some pain and I had to get this done.

00:01:15 John Daub: So without a referral note, you can still go to the hospital. You can go. But you must pay 5,500 yen, the no-letter fee. But if you go to a clinic, it's 1,080 yen, right? It's about 1,080 yen or 1,000 yen or 1,100 yen to actually go to the clinic. In holiday, almost all hospitals and clinics are closed. Everything is closed. So I really didn't have a choice. I had to go to the hospital.

00:01:50 John Daub: It's kind of a big deal because it's like a price that keeps you from breaking the rules. Like you have to go to the clinic. If you don't, you will be penalized with this. And also, if you do become a new patient at a hospital, you're going to a new place for the first time, you have to pay more. Health insurance will cover 70%. And so you have to pay 30% of the cost, which for this visit was 7,000, about 7,300 yen or about $70 US to go and visit the hospital for what they did.

00:02:28 John Daub: Now, I'm going to explain the process that we did from the moment we walked into the door and the moment that we exited, including going to this pharmacy that's across the street from the hospital, which is interesting. It's kind of the system is set up differently in Japan. So this is now my leg. Fight the pain. And it's been wrapped and I fell hard at an onsen filming. And I saved my camera. I kept it out of the water. But I banged up my leg real bad because I wasn't able to protect it. And it looks like for the next two weeks, I'm going to be in a bad situation.

00:03:12 Kanae Daub: But you took a needle, stuck it in there to try to get the blood that had bubbled up in there.

00:03:16 John Daub: And no blood came out. And I freaked out, right? Because your blood was tight.

00:03:21 Kanae Daub: My blood was tight. It's solid. My blood is jelly.

00:03:37 John Daub: If I had gotten to the hospital earlier, they wouldn't be able to take some of the blood that had accumulated in the wound. And I would be healing better. But there was nothing open. And hospital is sort of the last choice. And we can thank UFO Bob for pushing me and saying, go see a doctor, as well as some other people on our Discord server.

00:03:56 John Daub: So we came here by taxi because obviously I cannot walk. This hospital is like 5, 10 kilometer drive. So it's not too far away. It cost us about 10 to $12 to get here. Thank you Zato71 from Australia. So we got here and I walked through the door and they took our temperature at the Showa University Hospital when we entered. And also we had to wash our hands with alcohol. And of course you need a mask in order to enter in there.

00:04:27 John Daub: We went into the new patient check-in. There's always a place and usually they're marked in English these days, especially in the big cities. So you have to go to the new patient area, show them your insurance card, and then they'll ask you to fill in a form. You better call before you visit. Because some of the hospitals are closed. And also you need to check what time the hospital opens, what time it closes. Actually, this hospital was closed at 11 a.m. So if we didn't come here, can I call them at 10 a.m.? And she said, we got to go.

00:05:09 John Daub: Hospitals only open until 11 a.m. Reception is closed. Only if you have an appointment, can you actually go there. We don't have an appointment. So you should call in advance and then they'll tell you when you can go in and just come on an outpatient basis, meaning that you don't have a reservation and you just need help. I can't go to the clinic. This is the only place where there was a doctor available.

00:05:35 John Daub: So you get in there and you have a form that you have to fill out. It's all in Japanese. Google Translate does a pretty good job of helping you figure out what to do. But it's mostly your name, your address, your phone number, this kind of information and maybe your medical history a little bit, a little bit of the background. It's complicated Japanese. Google Translate can help. And sometimes there's somebody who can speak a little bit of English who will ask you these questions because they sometimes have foreigners who can't speak any Japanese at all, especially in the city.

00:06:05 John Daub: So I filled that out. She gave me a card, which is a plastic card, just like a credit card. And the next time I come here, I don't have to do that. So I think we paid an extra like $10 for that service. Then she told me to go up to the second floor to number 26 with this orthopedics. There was almost nobody in there. So I was kind of lucky today on the second floor. They told me to wait maybe an hour, but it was only like 15 minutes.

00:06:31 John Daub: The lady said, she looked at it, she touched it. I thought it was like a massage, but it hurt really bad. So she said, go to the x-ray. So then she told me to go to the x-ray. So I went back down to the first floor and we gave the paperwork to the x-ray lady. And we submitted it to her. She gave us another piece of paper and said, go to number six and seven and wait there. You're number 84.

00:06:56 John Daub: So we waited there. And on the top above the x-ray entry doors, there's a number. So you have a number, a ticket number. And then that corresponds with the number up there. So you can very easily know when your number is called and then go into that x-ray place. This is the same pretty much in all the hospitals and you'll get this at banks as well. So if you've been in Japan, you kind of know that the services you get the ticket, don't lose that ticket number. And then when your number is called, you can go in and get the service.

00:07:31 John Daub: I took the x-ray. The lady was very nice. I think Japanese hospital staff really kind and helpful. So each time they tell you where should you go next. They're very good at guiding. Just guiding. Very much. UFO Bob just wrote in very much like a fast pass at Disneyland. I guess it's kind of like a fast pass.

00:08:04 John Daub: So it's important if you call ahead, of course, and have a reservation and appointment. But we didn't have that. I was amazed that it went as fast as it is. We got there at 10:55, five minutes before close. And we got out of here. We finished the process now about 12:25. So it took about an hour and a half for this whole process, which is pretty fast for Japanese hospitals. Expect to wait, especially on weekdays. If you don't have an appointment, expect to wait.

00:08:43 John Daub: Once again, for those joining us, you cannot actually go to a hospital without a referral. And you need a letter from a clinic. So your first step is always going to go to a clinic. You talk to the doctor and then he'll ask you to make an appointment to go to the hospital. But again, everything is closed. This is my only choice for today. You can go to the hospital emergency. It's going to be much more expensive if you do that. Maybe three or four times more expensive. If you have to go to the emergency room, you've got to go to the emergency room. Sometimes you don't need to call in advance.

00:09:19 John Daub: So Japanese hospital is not so expensive compared to the US. It's not going to break the bank by any means. Again, like all this, it would have cost for the services $240 at the hospital. But we only paid $70, which is reasonable. Considering you didn't have a letter. University hospital.

00:09:44 John Daub: So I got the x-rays done and the lady was so nice. She said, May I touch you? May I move your legs? Is it okay? Can you please flip to the side? Are you okay? Do you feel comfortable? The amount of confirmation to make sure I'm okay was really amazing. It made me feel slightly uncomfortable because she did too much. But at the same time, very friendly and warm. And the two x-ray pictures were taken. I left. She said, thank you very much.

00:10:12 John Daub: And then I went up to the second floor back to number 26. So we went back up to 26 and the lady took our forms and she remembered me because I made some random jokes and then she said, wait here. And then after like five minutes, we walked into the examination room where it was the same doctor who had told me to go to the x-rays. She had sort of a sense of humor. I cracked some more jokes. And then she said I had a choice. Either I could just wait it out and let everything drain on its own because it was just kind of mushy in there or she can stick me and extract the guts or whatever is inside my knee.

00:11:08 John Daub: So I said I want extraction. I'm a man. She goes, if we extract it, we're going to put a needle in you and it's going to hurt. And I said, oh, I can take it. I'm a boy. I can take it. I'm strong. So then I said I can take the pain. So she put me on this bed and she said, go to sleep. And she didn't laugh. She's a very busy woman.

00:11:57 John Daub: I asked her how much is it going to hurt? And she goes, oh, just chicken chicken. Chicken is the sound of an injection going into your skin like chicken chicken. So she said just it's just a chicken. And I said, oh, just one chicken.

00:12:20 John Daub: So the diagnosis: she tried to extract blood. But my blood had hardened and it was tough so she couldn't get any blood. But she pinched some kind of blister and extracted this blood from that, which is cool. And then it did hurt a little bit. And I might have winced. And then afterwards, she said it's going to be two weeks or so and then you'll feel better. And the blood might drain into the bottom of your foot and blah blah blah. But there was no broken bones.

00:13:07 John Daub: Then she said, do you want medicine? It's slightly bitter. I said, heck yeah, I love bitter. I like goya (bitter melon), which is a very bitter, like a cucumber looking vegetable from Okinawa. So I said, I love goya. Give me some medicine. So she started laughing. So then she gave us the Kampo.

00:13:33 Kanae Daub: Kampo is not Western medicine. It's like Chinese medicine. It's kind of like vitamins and herbs and stuff, which is interesting that they gave me this for a bum leg.

00:13:44 John Daub: So then we had to go across the street. Here's the hospital there. So we walked across the street to this pharmacy right here. And we had to, once again, because we're new to this area, fill in another registration card. They got to find a way to make this easier with an app or something. We bring our own pen. So we don't want to touch anything. It's pandemic and all that. And we had to wait for another 10, 15 minutes. And then we got the Kampo.

00:14:26 John Daub: This is the medicine they gave me to help me with my leg. And I don't know what it is, but she says it's bitter. Japanese medicines often don't come in pill form. They give you powder form, which means you put it in there and you taste all the awfulness of it. And then you have to drink water. I never get the pills. I think they look at you and say, oh, he can take the powder version.

00:15:01 John Daub: Kampo is what it's called. I don't know what it calls in English. The hospital is very nice. People were very, very friendly inside of the hospital. And you get the same type of service that you would expect at like a Japanese hotel. There's omotenashi (hospitality). So people are very happy to guide you. It just depends how busy that they are. Depends on your experience. There's like nobody in here. And I think they're going to be closed for the day. But I'm very happy for the service that I got at the end. I got a card registered. If I ever come back, I can get more rapid service.

00:15:58 John Daub: But the point of this is that you definitely need to get to a clinic before you go to a hospital. You can't just walk into a hospital unless it's emergency room. When I was holding the camera in the onsen bath in Fukushima. We went with Greg. But I saved the camera. But I hit my leg harder. And best thing to do is when you're in an onsen and slipping, throw the camera or gently throw it onto the dry land. And then protect your leg and go down. If I had to do it again, I would do that.

00:17:11 John Daub: There's the hospital experience. I just wanted to make a short live stream and I hope that this is useful for you. Kanae and I are going to limp over to catch a taxi. Maybe even go to Aeon Mall for lunch. That's where TabiEats guys. They told me to go there for lunch. But we're going to be there soon. I'm walking pretty slow. So that's about it. And I want to say thanks to everybody on the Discord server and everybody else that have been giving me encouragement and saying to take it easy. I hear you. And probably I do take it easy because you tell me to. Tomorrow I still got to film. So the rest of today, I'm going to be at home editing and taking it easy as soon as we get back. And tomorrow I should be feeling better since they stuck me with a needle. But thankfully only charged me $70 for it.

00:18:01 John Daub: If you have any questions, leave it below. No, I'm not going to get a bionic leg. Actually, it was my buddy Simon who asked me. He said, if you could replace your body parts with bionic body parts, would you do it? And I said, heck no. I want to be able to feel stuff. But it'd be bionic. You'd be stronger and be able to run faster. Would you do it? And I said no. I like what God has given me. I'll take what I've been given and just make the best of it. Until I can't, then I'll become bionic man.

00:19:14 John Daub: Just go to the hospital. Fix up what you break. And you know what? Don't break it in the first place. Just be careful. Thank you, Showa University Hospital. Great service. I hope I'm not back. Have a good day, everybody. Bye from Kanae. I'll see you tomorrow in another live stream from Tokorozawa. We're doing good. And thanks for buying us lunch, everybody. Bye, guys.