Lack Of Medical Staff Becomes A New Problem Of The Tokyo Olympics

Tokyo Olympics illustration (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Japanese doctors and nurses fighting COVID-19 will not have time to volunteer to help the Olympics, the medical association said, which will raise further problems for organizers in organizing the already delayed Olympics.

The director of the Tokyo Medical Association, which represents 20,000 doctors from dozens of smaller medical groups, said doctors and nurses were under too much pressure to handle the third wave of the pandemic to even consider registering for the Olympics.

"No matter how I look at it, it's impossible," said Satoru Arai, whose association was asked by the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government last March to find more than 3,500 medical staff for the event.

"I heard doctors who originally signed up to volunteer say there was no way they could take time off to help when their hospital was really overwhelmed," Arai told Reuters this week, adding that he could not bring himself to encourage volunteers at a critical time.

The Olympics had to be postponed from July and August last year as the coronavirus spreads around the world and is now scheduled for 23 July-8 August 2021.

But the continuing clusters of infections in Japan have raised questions about the viability of hosting this year's Olympics and eroded support for the global sporting event amid public concerns about athletes and spectators bringing new cases.

New infections in Japan rose to new highs in early January, triggering a state of emergency in Tokyo and several other areas. The government extended the state of emergency in most of the places on Tuesday.

Japan has fared better than several other countries in the fight against the virus. The country has recorded 390,000 cases and 5,794 deaths.

As of last Wednesday, 73 percent of the beds available in Tokyo for COVID-19 patients were full, with 2,933 people.

The government is determined to hold the Olympics, among other things, to show hope of an end to the pandemic.

Without an audience

As part of preparations, Olympic Minister Seiko Hashimoto told parliament last week that the government had plans to secure about 10,000 medical personnel for the Games.

Arai said the Olympics without spectators would ease a large part of the burden on providing doctors and his association believes that's how it should be held.

While the possibility of an Olympics with no audience has been raised, organizers say they are reluctant to even think about it.

The Tokyo Olympics organizing committee did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on medical services.

Organizers have suggested that volunteer doctors should be paid for their work, according to a lawmaker who attended the meeting on Tuesday.

It would mark a departure from what had been common practice at previous Olympics, where advanced medical staff volunteered for free.

But Arai says that it's not about money. The only worry is that doctors will be overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and vaccinations throughout the summer.