• March 28, 2024

Japan’s hospitals ban or restrict tobacco smoking

About half of Japan’s 8,500 hospitals have banned tobacco smoking on their premises, according to a story in The Japan Times citing a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry survey.

The ministry described the survey as a snapshot of the situation that existed on October 1 last year.

The survey results, published yesterday, showed that the other hospitals allow smoking in limited areas, with about 30 percent prohibiting smoking only indoors and about 15 percent setting up special areas for smokers.

The Times said there had been discussions about enacting public-places smoking bans in time for the staging of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, but that the survey suggested ‘slow progress’ was being made in banishing smoke from medical facilities.

Nevertheless, the ministry has said that it aims to eliminate second-hand smoke at all medical facilities by fiscal 2022.

Japan’s Health Promotion Law, which came into force in 2003, requires public facilities to carry out measures to prevent passive smoking. However, it imposes no penalties for those that do not comply.

In 2010, the health ministry issued a notice saying it was preferable that all public offices and medical facilities ban smoking completely. But it did not state whether non-smoking areas should cover the entire premises of a facility or just building interiors.