Feb 24 (Japan Times) - Hospitals and clinics in rural areas are finding it increasingly difficult to hire nurses on their own, and the amount of referral fees they are paying to private agents are significantly on the rise, a recent research report shows.
To employ a full-time nurse the fees were about ¥870,000 ($8,100) on average in fiscal 2016, according to the report released by the Japan Medical Association Research Institute.
In the year that ended in March 2017, the total amount of fees paid by 844 medical institutions surveyed had ballooned to roughly ¥1.6 billion, compared with ¥1.1 billion in fiscal 2014, it said.
“The results confirmed the costs have placed a heavy burden on hospitals relying on private staff agencies,†said Nobuyuki Tsutsumi, one of the research fellows at the institute who conducted the survey.
The report, released in late December, said there were 36 hospitals spending more than ¥10 million on such fees.
Despite the additional costs, the report also showed that the turnover rate of nurses recruited with the help of the agencies is higher. In recent years an average of 11.3 percent left jobs within one year, while the overall rate — including those employed without using private employment agencies — was just 6.1 percent.
As for the rate of departures within six months, 6.6 percent of nurses hired through the agencies left compared with only 3 percent overall.
The institute conducted the survey between May and June last year, contacting some 4,000 hospitals and clinics across the country of which 844 responded online.
The study found that the lack of nurses is acute in more rural and less-populated areas.
