A cute approach to life and death
Medical checkup in Japan
Dear readers, if you have been following my daily dispatches from my neighborhood, you already know that I started those hard-walking session after having a look at the less-than-ideal results of my recent medical checkup.
So today I’d like to tell you how the Japanese medical system works in these cases.
When you reach a certain age (50-something, if I remember well) they start sending you letters, forms and information, insisting on the fact that, well, you are getting old and should take care of your slowly decaying body.
The message here is that prevention is better and cheaper than having to fix a broken machine.
After booking your visit, you get a big envelope in the mail containing several forms to fill out and two small vinyl envelopes (in my case, one dark brown and the other bottle green (?), respectively for the urine and stool test.
You are supposed to fill the provided plastic tubes before you go to the hospital.
I know, it’s gross, but what can you do.
Let’s start with the urine test. I don’t know how it works in other countries, but the Japanese are very thorough and provide everything you need. Please have a look at the picture above: as it’s written in the instructions, you have to pee into that foldable plastic cup, then gather the liquid with the dropper (syphon? How do you call that thingy?) and drop it into the tube. Simple enough, innit?
Next comes the heavy stuff.
This time you need to do your thing twice. By the way, what are those folded sheets of paper?
The ever-helpful Japanese medical system provides you with two sturdy white sheets to catch the falling specimens. As you can see, they have even added a target in the middle, and instructions on where and how to place it inside the WC.
Turdy is still there to provide moral support and warn you not to clog the pipes.
The colorful paper on the left provides more instructions - very graphic, as you can see - on how to “get your shit together.”
Did I tell you it was gross?
By the way, all general tests are FREE. You only pay a relatively small fee for extra/more specialized tests. The one for prostate cancer, for instance, costs a measly 1,000 yen.
How does this compare to other countries? Please do tell.
I take my voucher for the free checks and add the same value to it for extra ones at a local hospital. So, much better than the checks I used to get through work.
Canada here, we have none of the above. I use a Dr who is outside the system,who I pay a fee to run comprehensive blood work every 6 months, the tests themselves are free. My GP quit post covid and I have been unable to find another Dr