Patient’s Rights, Child’s Rights and Our Requests to the Patient

Patient’s Rights

Updated July 18, 2023

1. The patient has a right to have the personality and the philosophy respected and the dignity protected.
Each individual patient has a right to have his/her own personality and philosophy respected without any discrimination, the human dignity protected under whatever circumstances he/she is in.

2. The patient has a right to receive safe and the best optimal medical care.
We assign the highest priority to medical safety, and at the same time, we make our utmost efforts to strive for dialogues with the patient and his/her family and to provide the best medical care tailored to the patient’s conditions.  

3. The patient has a right to receive the sufficient explanation and information, and make his/her choice on the therapeutic plan, or refuse taking one, based on his/her own free will.
The patient has a right to receive sufficient explanations regarding his/her disease, examination and treatment, and to choose the medical care which meets his/her life style among the options offered. When the suggested option does not meet it, he/she has a right to refuse it.
We try to provide explanations which will be easy for the patient to understand, and answer any questions regarding them. Recording the session is always approved. When the explanations are still incomprehensible, the patient can visit the Patient Support & Inquiries or the Patient & Family Support Center for further assistance. Also visiting the Asunaro Library can be helpful for deepening understanding the disease.  

4. The patient has a right to receive supports for confronting the disease.
We make efforts to support the patient and his/her family for overcoming the distress with cancer and confronting the disease. The Shizuoka Cancer Center has full-time staff specializing in listening to, trying to find solutions empathically for and helping to resolve the patient’s physical and psychological distresses, issues about his/her cancer treatment and his/her life strains. Whenever the patient has problems, he/she can visit his/her primary doctor, nurses, the Patient Support & Inquiries, or the Patient & Family Support Center.

5. The patient has a right to seek an opinion from another doctor (a second opinion).
The patient has a right to seek “a second opinion” about his/her disease conditions or treatment method from another doctor or some specialist. In order to let him/her do so, we will be willing to introduce another doctor within the hospital or prepare the Letter of Introduction with the required materials for introducing another doctor at some other medical institution, whenever the patient and his/her family ask us to do so.  

6. The patient has a right to seek a disclosure of his/her own medical information.
The patient has a right to seek a disclosure of information on the medical records of his/her own according to prescribed procedure. In addition, he/she can also obtain a copy of it, not just viewing it. Please visit the Patient Support & Inquiries office when you would like to apply for the disclosure.     

7. The patient has a right to expect his/her personal information to be kept utterly confidential.
We treat of patients’ personal information with rigid caution according to the law. When the patient has any wishes or complaints regarding the protection of his/her personal information, he/she should visit his/her primary doctor, nurses or the Patient Support or Inquiries.

Child’s Rights

July 18, 2023

The Shizuoka Cancer Center worked out the Child’s Rights based on the “Charter for Children in Medicine” developed by the Japan Pediatric Society in August, 2022. We, the Shizuoka Cancer Center, declare that we abide by the “Basic Act for the Children” and the “Convention on the Rights of the Child” (UNICEF) in addition to our “Child’s Rights” as a medical institution where lives and wholesome growth of all the children involved in medical care are valued and secured.

  1. The child has a right to be respected as a person and stay being himself/herself.
  2. The child has a right to make others consider what will be the best for him/her (i.e., the best interests for the child).
  3. The child has a right to live in a safe and peaceful environment.
  4. The child has a right to stay with his/her parent or anyone close in any care facility including hospital.
  5. The child has a right to be taught anything necessary for him/her, and to express his/her own feeling, hope and opinion.
  6. The child has a right to demand a clarification of the reason when things do not go as he/she wishes.
  7. The child has a right to be neither discriminated nor hurt physically or psychologically.
  8. The child has a right not to allow anyone to reveal his/her private matters without his/her permission.
  9. The child has a right to play or study even when he/she is sick.
  10. The child has a right to receive a treatment or medical care provided by well-trained professional medical staff.
  11. The child has a right to receive a treatment or medical care not only currently but also continuously for the time to come.
  12. The child has a right to have all the above-mentioned rights guaranteed when his/her parent or sibling becomes a cancer patient.

Our Requests to the Patient

Updated July 18, 2023

1. Could you try to actively participate in your treatment?
Correct understanding of the disease and active participation in the medical care by the patient lead to safe and effective medicine. If there is anything unclear or hard to understand about your disease and treatment, please ask the medical staff any questions until you feel you have understood them. When you feel the explanations remain unclear, would you please visit the Patient Support & Inquiries or the Patient & Family Support Center for more detailed information?  

2. Could you let us know anything you know about your disease and health issues as accurately as possible?
In order to provide safe, optimal and the best medicine, we should ask you to let us have accurate information regarding your disease and health including the symptoms, the disease history and the drugs. The Letter of Introduction issued by your former primary doctor includes a lot of valuable medical information. Please bring one on your first visit to the Shizuoka Cancer Center.

3. Could you follow the hospital rules for maintaining comfortable hospital environment? Please respect the standpoints and the privacy of other patients.
There are many patients receiving their treatments, as well as many staff working, at the hospital. We would like to ask you to follow the hospital rules, and refrain from displaying any annoying behaviors for others, or any acts that may possibly interrupt us from providing medical care. They include talking on your mobile phone where it is not allowed to do so (you can use your mobile phone in the designated areas). Above all, the following specific behaviors should be avoided, and in case you fail to abide by this request, we might refuse to accept you as a patient here.

4. We would like you to be cooperative for avoiding a danger and preventing an accident.
We are constantly making our utmost efforts to prevent possible accidents, including medical ones. However, it is a must to get cooperation from the patient and his/her family, too, for making the prevention more effective. When you receive a printed document from the hospital, please check to see that it is certainly addressed to you with your name typed in there. Whenever you feel uncertain about the explanation by the staff, the scheduled examination or procedure, or the drugs prescribed, please ask the medical staff for the clarification right away. In addition, when you see or hear any dangerous situations in the hospital or on the hospital property, please let us know them as soon as you can!

5. Could you let us know your opinion or complaint about the Shizuoka Cancer Center?
We respect an opinion or a complaint from the patient and his/her family. When you have one, could you share it with the staff or the Patient Support & Inquiry? In case it is something awkward to say face-to-face, please write it on the memo and drop it in the Opinion Box which can be found at various spots in the hospital. Even when the opinion or the complaint remains anonymous, the staff at the Risk Management & Quality Control Office will conduct a factual investigation on the issue and will take the matter to the attention of the top officials on a daily basis. Because the staff at the Patient Support & Inquiry office has a neutral standpoint, independent from any hospital departments, you can complain about a trouble with the hospital staff without concern. Even in a case like this, you can stay anonymous.

6. We would like your understanding and cooperation for our researches and medical education.
At the Shizuoka Cancer Center, various researches regarding cancer medicine are being carried out. These researches essentially require the clinical information and the specimen materials of cancer patients. All the researches comply with the relevant laws and guidelines in accordance with the approvals by the Institutional Review Board, which inevitably require the strict protection of the personal information of the patients. Also at the Shizuoka Cancer Center, clinical training for the medical staff and hands-on practice for the students are conducted sometimes. The researches as well as the medical education are essential for development of medicine in the future. Therefore, we would like to ask you to understand the need for both and be cooperative. Please note that even when you decide not to be cooperative, there will be nothing disadvantageous for you at all.  

7. According to the ethical regulation of the Shizuoka Prefectural Government, we strictly but cordially decline any gratuity or gifts to the staff.

 

Ethos, Promises to Patients and Basic Policies

Ethos, Promises to Patients and Basic Policies