With the aim of ensuring the participation of more doctors in emergency medical care, the government will improve education and training relating to emergency medical care in the clinical education provided in undergraduate medical study programs. The government will also improve training for doctors working at local Emergency and Critical Care Centers to increase the
life-saving rate in their areas. In all these ways, they will secure the availability of more doctors for work in the field of emergency medical treatment, and raise the standard of their quality.
The government will also work to increase the number of nurses specializing in emergency treatment, by improving the emergency medical care training included in training courses for nurses, both before and after graduation, so that more nurses are available to properly assist doctors in emergency work. The government will also hold lecture classes for instructors of emergency resuscitation techniques, targeting workers in public institutions such as public health centers, to train those who plan and operate promotion measures on emergency resuscitation in communities.
Furthermore, from the viewpoint of improving emergency activities in and out of hospitals, the government will promote training to improve the ability of standard initial response to injuries. C. Promoting the “Doctor-helicopter” project
The government will aim for nationwide deployment of doctor-helicopters, which have onboard doctors that give emergency medical treatment to injured people during transport. They enable emergency medical treatment to be provided immediately to seriously injured people at the scene of emergencies, transport the injured to emergency medical facilities as quickly as possible, and save as many lives as possible, while minimizing the residual disabilities of the people injured in traffic accidents.
In order for doctor-helicopters to operate smoothly, the government will strengthen efforts to create an operation manual and provide wireless devices with a common frequency. They will do this in cooperation with related organizations and groups, for the purpose of sharing information on areas and places where doctor-helicopters can land safely.
(3) Cultivating the cooperation of emergency-related organizations
To transport critically injured patients to emergency medical facilities quickly and smoothly, the government will promote closer communication and cooperation among related organizations, such as emergency medical facilities and fire fighting organizations, and also work to clarify procedures for accepting emergency patients and contacting between emergency medical facilities.
Also, in order to try and save as many lives as possible, the government will try to make available more doctors and nurses to provide emergency medical care to seriously injured people at the scene of accidents and en route to the hospital by deploying more doctor’s vehicles to medical facilities. The government will also promote the introduction of a system (hot line) that allows ambulance attendants to communicate directly with doctors using car phones installed in ambulances or mobile phones and devices that transmit data on patients’ conditions to medical facilities, so that doctors can directly deliver advice and instructions to emergency scenes. In these ways, they will promote a more effective emergency system featuring closer coordination and cooperation between medical facilities and rescue services such as fire fighting organizations.
To prepare for large scale accidents that result in many victims, the government will promote the utilization of the Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT).
This applies not only to accidents in the road transport sector, but also to large scale accidents in all transport sectors.
7. Promoting victim support, including the appropriate compensation system
Traffic accident victims suffer enormously in many ways. Those victims face serious physical, psychological and financial loss, or even lose their precious lives or their family members’. In recognition of the extreme importance of supporting such traffic accident victims, the government will comprehensively promote measures for traffic accident victims in a well planned manner under such acts as the Basic Act on Crime Victims, etc.
The Automobile Liability Security Act (Act No. 97 of 1955) makes it compulsory for all motor vehicles to be covered by compulsory automobile liability insurance (mutual relief), in order to ensure that the responsible parties in motor vehicle accidents can provide compensation to the accident victims, and to facilitate execution of compensation processes. This act also ensures appropriate insurance (mutual relief) payment by insurance companies (associations), and obligates the government to carry out the Automobile Liability Security Scheme, which guarantees compensation to traffic accident victims of hit and run accidents and accidents caused by uninsured (non-mutual relief) vehicles. Furthermore, the government will implement measures such as the Victim Protection Scheme funded by investment profits of a part of accumulated profits at the time of the abolition of the government reinsurance scheme at the end of FY2001. Through these measures, protection and relief of motor vehicle accident victims has been pursued to this date, and will be improved further in the future. One particular area of concern over recent years is the increase in the number of people suffering from serious physical disabilities after traffic accidents. To address this concern, the government will continue to improve policies to increase the welfare of such accident victims.
In addition, since traffic accident victims also often suffer from serious mental trauma and are not provided with adequate knowledge and information about traffic accidents, the government will actively promote policies aimed at making available more counseling opportunities for such people and informing them better about their traffic accidents and the progress of investigations. [Priority measures and newly-introduced measures in the Ninth Program]
Improving support for compensation claims ((2) B)
Promoting policies to provide more compassionate treatment of traffic accident victims ((3) B)
(1) Improving the Automobile Liability Security System
The national and local governments will continue to improve the Automobile Liability Security System that plays a central role in policies to protect the interests of vehicle accident victims, in accordance with changes in social and economic conditions and the traffic accident situation.