Nov 12, 2018
Medical forms and things that make you go hmm
I’m very grateful that our local hospital provides forms in English, so that I’m not left at routine appointments to try and decipher Japanese that I have never encountered before. At one of my recent appointments though, I wondered about the relevance of some questions on the form...in particular this one:
They specifically wanted to know my husband’s age/nationality/occupation on the form. Since I was the patient and not my husband, I was curious about why they needed to know that kind of information, particularly his nationality! I’ve never encountered that kind of question back home, and wondered if it’s a normal thing on forms here.
7 Comments
Lyssays
on Nov 12
Unless they’re needing his insurance information or something, I’m not sure how relevant your husband is at all if you’re the patient, let alone all those unnecessary details about him!
genkidesu
on Nov 12
@lyssays that’s what I thought too! I wanted to ask why it was necessary but just ended up filling it in anyway to save the fuss. Seemed completely irrelevant to the appointment and kind of judgey!
helloalissa
on Nov 14
Wow, must be only on the forms with English translations? For the city collecting statistics maybe? How old you were when you got married? Weird questions in general, right? I haven't seen that before. When I went to the ladies clinic here they didn't ask such detailed questions or anything about my husband on the Japanese form.
genkidesu
on Nov 14
@helloalissa I know! So weird...I was just like "what's the relevance?!" I guess it could definitely be for city office statistics...it just felt so nosy!
Eli
on Nov 22
I have never been asked any information about my husband when I was the patient, so I would say its not normal. But we both have our own health insurance. So it might differ if your insurance is covered by your husbands.
KamaT
on Nov 29
Japan's always with the questions. It can get frustrating. I recently renewed my spouse visa and one of the questions was "Why do you want to renew this spouse visa?" Or something like that. I honestly didn't know what to write (I though it was so obvious) so I looked it up online and someone with a Japanese blog or webpage said, "Because I want to continue living with my wife / husband in Japan." which I thought goes without saying .. even if it's not actually the case. Anyway, it seemed to work. I got the visa - 3 years (not the 5 that I asked for on the form - don't know why they bother asking that either).
genkidesu
on Nov 30
@Tomuu Oh man, good old Google to the rescue there! It does seem like such a ridiculously obvious question, doesn't it? It also baffles me that Japan is so strict with lengths of time for spouse visas. They don't offer PR instead of just extending visas? The idea of constantly having to re-visit the immigration office makes me shudder!