free vaccine notice for small kids from ward /city office

[mino3442]

Are you a non-Japanese parent? Is your spouse also non-Japanese and you have small kids? You get postcards or envelops from ward/city office to notify that your kids are entitled to free vacine for polio, measles, rubella, etc.

How you handle those things with your inability to read Japanese? You toss them away and don't know if you are doing so?

[Taro Toporific]

Are you a non-Japanese parent? Is your spouse also non-Japanese and you have small kids? You get postcards or envelops from ward/city office to notify that your kids are entitled to free vacine for polio, measles, rubella, etc.

Use the translation of the Boshi Techo, "A Uniquely Japanese Document: The Mother and Child Health Handbook

What is a Boshi Techo and why do I need one?
The Mother and Child Health Handbook, [Boshi Techo] is a small booklet that will chronicle your pregnancy, your well-being, the birth, the well-being of the child and the immunization record of the child up to and including the age of six...Despite what some of us have been told, at the time of birth you may choose to have the bi-lingual one notarized instead of the Japanese one...more...

In fact, be sure to check out all the info at the Japan with Kids website and forum.

[mino3442]

so, another word, foreigners only get English reminder of vaccine when they are about 3 month pregnant. Japanese get reminder 2 to 3 weeks prior to each vaccine. right?

[Taro Toporific]

so, another word, foreigners only get English reminder of vaccine when they are about 3 month pregnant. Japanese get reminder 2 to 3 weeks prior to each vaccine. right?

Well yes, but using the bilingual info from the sources above a f'ed gaijin parent texts will help you figure out what the notices say. Some wards in Tokyo like Toshima-ku send out notices with pertinent phrases in Chinese, English, etc at the bottom of the postcard but most wards don't. Then again, there aren't many Japanese notices sent out in Euroland or the Americas either.

Your family doctor will call you with a vaccination reminder. That's how I got my flu shot last December. A chirpy receptionist in cute homestay English called me with the reminder (even though my Japanese is good enough for medical needs). Your ward's "gaijin wrangers" in the foriegn residents bureau do things like phone reminders all the time. All you have to do is act like a "linguistic lame" and ask for help. It's dumbfounding to me the allowances that Japanese have made for me over the years. Just ask to be "special" and the Japanese will do it (providing you're charming enough). Even my NHK collector is quadralingual, dang.

[mino3442]

japanese notice also includes where, when and what time to go for vaccine shots for kids at a very timely manner. boshi techou obviously doesn't. i just wish those postcards or letters in envlops notifying the free vaccines had english version, or chinese and korean version for those who don't read Japanese or English.

[Mulboyne]

Kyodo via Yahoo: Better services for foreign babies start in Setagaya
Susannah Tartan, an American mother whose son, Raphael, is four years old, said she thinks she has been receiving vaccination notices in Japanese from the Nakano Ward office in Tokyo. Tartan, an English instructor at Tokyo's Sophia University [and Japan Times writer], took no notice of them. She had already consulted with an English-speaking doctor and decided Raphael would not receive most of the free vaccinations available under the Japanese medical insurance system. Tartan, 37, said she needed little government help, adding most foreign parents do a lot of research themselves because "having babies in foreign countries is a big deal."
Due to the inoculations, Japanese rarely die of diseases like polio, which still kills children in developing countries as their parents and governments cannot afford vaccinations. Some such countries have high infant mortality rates. Japan's problem is that many adults have no interest in becoming parents. Helping foreign parents in Japan may be a way to combat the effects of the country's declining birth rate, which hit a record low of 1.29 in 2003. The number of babies born in Japan to non-Japanese parents more than doubled to 11,157 in 2003 from 5,798 in 1985, the oldest data available, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. In the same period, the total number of babies born in Japan fell 22 percent to 1.13 million from 1.44 million.
Wishing to help non-Japanese babies and their parents, Noriko Hayashibe, a 62-year-old Setagaya Ward resident, established a group called the Setagaya Universal Network for United Support in June 2003. The group produces an English-language version of the information kits for vaccinations for eight diseases including polio, rubella and measles for Setagaya.In April 2004, SUNUS and Setagaya made a hundred copies of vaccination booklets, and another hundred copies of books on periodical health checkups for infants.
The ward sends a letter in Japanese to notify parents of the place and time vaccinations will be given as well as a questionnaire to be pre-written for doctor reference a few weeks prior to each vaccination and checkup. It puts an English seal on the envelopes saying foreign recipients must open the envelopes as they contain important information for their babies. If recipients request an English-language version, the ward photocopies a page of the booklet and sends it. Broadening such moves across Japan would be difficult because the authority on how to provide vaccination services rests entirely on "about 3,000 municipalities in Japan," said Kosuke Kato, a health ministry official. The ministry, Kato said, "has no idea which municipalities, if any, are providing English services." Forty seven prefectural governments also have no idea.
Hayashibe persists. She has two plans: first, duplicating her success in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area; secondly, making Korean, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish versions. She said she will start asking Shinjuku ward, a tenth of whose residents are foreign, Minato and other wards for cooperation. Shinjuku, Adachi, Edogawa, Minato and Toshima wards, the five largest municipalities in Tokyo in terms of foreign population, have no vaccination notices in languages other than Japanese, officials of each ward said. The biggest obstacle facing Hayashibe in terms of realizing her plans is money. Setagaya offered only 1 million yen to help. The total cost was 1.18 million yen, so SUNUS had to cover the difference. Hayashibe plans to ask baby product makers and retailers to help finance the project in return for free advertising in the booklets.
In 2003, Brazilian babies accounted for 23 percent of foreign babies born in Japan, the largest nationality group followed by Chinese with 21 percent and Korean with 20 percent, according to the health ministry. A Korean version of Hayashibe's booklets is on the go in Setagaya. Ahn So Young, a 42-year-old South Korean mother of two, offered to translate the booklets. Although Ahn "roughly" understood written Japanese when she received vaccination notices for her 8-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter, multilingual versions would be useful for some foreign residents of Japan, especially housewives whose husbands' jobs brought them to Japan, she said. Hayashibe and Setagaya Ward did not discuss how they share the expense of producing the Korean version, though the ward seemed interested when Hayashibe presented a sample, she said.
Ahn roots for Hayashibe, hoping SUNUS will pave the way for extending multilingual services over a wider area. "The problems are not limited to Setagaya," she said. "Shinjuku, other wards, and other prefectures like Osaka must have the problems, too." For now, Hayashibe will start with her neighbors. She realizes the difficulty of persuading municipalities that the project is worth spending money on. Hayshibe said the most frequently heard excuse is: "Why do we have to do it? The United States, France and Germany aren't doing it in Japanese." "Then, if Japan does it, we shall be known as the most advanced country in the world. That's why we should do it," she said.

[tidbits]

I will post my question here since the topic is relevant.

I wanted to give my baby (who is still on short term visa) the vaccination that he needed and I was willing to pay for the expenses, but the nurse told me that there is no hurry as long as he gets all the vaccination before he is 7 years old and so I went home. Now I am back in my hometown, my doctor here is surprise at the attitude of the nurse thinking how clean Japan can be. ..Anyway any good FG babies friendly clinics in Tokyo area recommended when I am back there? Pls PM me. (He is still going to be a 'tourist' this time, I have applied for C.O.E in Dec, but still not thru by now).

[ramchop]

Vaccination programs differ wherever you go. My kids had free shots in Tokyo, but there were others they don't routinely do which we had to pay for (despite working at the hospital).