St. Luke’s International Hospital — Attraction in Tokyo

I had returned to my local doctor in Tokyo three times with the same symptoms and each time he gave me different antibiotics. I would recover for a short time only to return again for the same treatment ($$$). Because of the reoccurrences my doctor wrote a referral letter, complete with medical history (which I had to pay for), to an acute hospital for further tests; St Luke's International Hospital near Tsukiji, Tokyo.

On first inspection St Luke's looks like a very respectable acute hospital and I was very confident that I would get the treatment I needed to stop my reoccurring medical troubles. How WRONG I was.....

After making an appointment with the front desk I arrived with a referral letter and medical history. First time patients have to pay a registration fee of 7000 YEN!!! (unbeknown to me and not mentioned while making the booking).

After 20 minutes I was given a urine test which I had been given at the local clinic a week before. After a further 100 minutes of waiting I was called in to see the rudest doctor I have ever experienced, for only 10 minutes!

Once inside I explained my symptoms/pains to the doctor and he had my medical history. He took one look at me and the test results and said everything was fine and to come back if the pains get worse, which conflicted with my local doctor's opinion and my condition.

Pretty much word for word he said "I have met so many foreign patients your age with the same symptoms and told them not to worry. Please come back another time if the symptoms get worse." Very comforting.

I of course had a few questions for him because I didn't want to keep taking antibiotics that didn't work and have to return to the clinic/hospital again ($$$). He however was hesitant/couldn't answer in detail and reminded me more than 3 or 4 times (in 10 minutes) that other patients were waiting outside.

So I left the doctor's room with no real answers and no further forward from my appointments at the local GP. The only difference was that I was slapped with a 19,000 YEN bill. 7000 YEN was for the registration (although with a referral letter it should have been 1600YEN).

I'm really not sure about how the other 12,000 YEN was spent as no one, in a hospital famed for it's staff's English speaking ability, could translate for me. The urine test was dirt cheap at my local GP so it must have been highly inflated at this acute.

So to recap; large registration fee, long waiting, repeat tests that I had to again pay for, 10 minute-only meeting with a doctor, extremely rude and unprofessional doctor, long waiting time, huge bill. The most expensive urine test ever!

This is a place with a high turnover of patients where patient care is sacrificed for the bottom line -...

My girlfriend suffered from the flu and showed symptoms of a sore throat with inflammation along with a slight temperature of 38 degrees. We decided it was best to get some amoxicillin and some pain killers. We then went to Tokyo Business Clinic to hopefully get the prescriptions and was misdiagnosed by the doctor saying that we needed incision drainage in her throat because it might close her airways. Then, taking the referral we went to St. Luke’s Emergency Department to see another doctor to get the prescriptions. After a 1.5 hr wait which was expected due to it being a Sunday, we finally got to see the doctor. Unfortunately they once again suggested that we do CT scans and further blood work for just the flu? I repeatedly told them NOT to do blood tests or scans due to my girlfriend not having health insurance at the time multiple times (both to reception desk and the doctor/nurse treating her). We were charged 30,000+ for some blood tests that simply said that inflammation markers (WBC and CRP) were high, along with very general health assessment markets such as eGFR, RBC etc. Finally, after negotiating for her just to simply be put on antibiotics and some painkillers, my girlfriends symptoms improved greatly which was what we needed all along. He then gave us the prescriptions and we were charged a total of 75,000+ yen for that. Literally just for something as simple as the flu. This, paired with the doctor at the Tokyo Business Clinic was a very very disappointing experience with Tokyo’s healthcare system and seems to be simply charging foreigners more unnecessary money. Whether it was intentional or just the lack of experience and wisdom on the doctors part...

St Luke’s has the Worst service and the annual health check provided is costly but useless. They say it’s an international hospital which is misbranded because they mainly use interpreters with limited English speakers. I have been doing my annual health check with additional tests at St Luke’s for over 15 years but they never identified anything or advised me to explore anything further due to unusual results. However 2 weeks ago when I was overseas I had a heart attack and the overseas hospital told me I had one fully blocked artery which was life threatening and another 2 arteries which were partially blocked. This was shocking as St Luke’s never gave me any indication. I had to do an immediate stent to save my life and be able to return to Japan to fix the remaining blocks. As soon as I returned to Japan I called St Luke’s to explain the situation and get an immediate appointment, as I could have died. I was told through an interpreter to send my referral letter and details by email which I did immediately even skipping my lunch as it was urgent. I never heard back even an acknowledgment after more than 24 hours even though I needed urgent help. I am disgusted at this hospital that after more than 15 years loyalty/trust, their annual health check seems to be completely useless and gave me a false sense of security. Further, in my hour of need they deserted me and just don’t seem to care. Luckily I found another hospital which actually seems to care about its patients and will be doing the remaining...