- an email is sent to all offices saying all employees need the check
- a medical package will be mailed to your office with your name on it
- an appointment is scheduled for you, with the location picked
- but, this will be inconvenient for any number of people in your office, so you will need to reschedule
You can reschedule your appointment online so long as it is two days before. You can switch the language to English, and enough will be translated so that you can navigate. (Websites are not 100% translated, and often the English is nonsensical. This is why I can vaguely read "morning" and "next day" in kanji due to having to reschedule mail a few times.)
First, you have to pick your location. Health checks are done at two locations, and each only has a limited number of spots and days. Health checks are also split between men and women. I think the men only have two locations to pick from too, but I'm not 100% sure. I do know that the guys I know had no worries rescheduling their appointments. Lots of open spots. But, I had a heck of a time, and I had to do it twice.
Health checks do not take place at a medical facility. They happen in a conference room. Dozens of women are packed together, but somewhat separate due to the different stations slapped together and hidden by tarps. You check in by handing your medical packet they sent you to a receptionist. She asks what your name is to confirm (this for me was a little annoying because I was the only gaijin, so naturally I was the only one with my name, and it makes zero sense for someone to pretend to be me for a medical check).
After checking in, you go sit among a group of women at the first station. There are chairs, and they move down the line. So, basically, you sit, stand 30 seconds later, shift to the next seat, and repeat for the next 20 minutes until it's your turn. All of the waiting areas in this open space are structured the same. And, you always have to wait. Just like each station asks what your name is. There are around ten stations, but you don't have to go to all of them unless you're pregnant or something like that.
- First station is height and weight. After they do this, they hand you the numbers and ask you if they are correct. Which... is all kinds of a dumb question.
- Second, you get your vision tested. They ask if you wear contacts (they have the same word so that you know easily what they're asking). Then, you do the test while still wearing your contacts.
- Third, blood pressure. Before this, they ask if you are pregnant. Or, in my case, it was just "baby in" because the woman spoke as much English as I do Japanese. That was probably the most effective way to ask that I've heard yet. XD
- Fourth, they take your blood. Three vials. It wasn't bad, but the woman doing it was kind of unpleasant. I'll write it off as just a long, bad day though.
- Fifth is hearing. This one was sort of funny, because they set up a second chair for your bag. I thought the lady was telling me to sit there, so bounced between the two seats until I realized she was saying the word for bag. Which is a different word from "shopping bag".
- Sixth was measuring your guts. Lift your shirt and under shirt, and pull your pants an inch down so they can put a tape measurer around your guts. Not waist, but were your organs would be all nestled.
- Seventh, and this was awkward, they do some type of electrode reading. You are told to unhook your bra and lay on the table on your back. And, without warning, a woman will basically yank your shirts and bar into your face, feel around on your chest, and start putting electrodes on you. She tells you to "relax" and disappears, coming back a couple of seconds later to disconnect all the suction cups. You're given a little time to look like you didn't just get roughed up by a woman nearing her 60s, and ushered back out through the tarp.
- Eighth, you wait for the longest wait yet--to see an actual doctor and not just a volunteer. For me, the doctor asked if it was okay to speak Japanese. I said only slightly, so she spoke English. My visit was extremely short. It started with asking my name, asking if Japanese was okay, asking how long I've lived in Japan while feeling my lymph nodes, listening to my lungs, and asking if everything was okay.
- Ninth, a short wait to hand in my sheet of paper and to be told how to get to the x-ray station. The woman I was handing my info to confirmed my name, again. She didn't speak English at all, but could understand me, so I just repeated what I figured she was trying to say to confirm the directions.
- Tenth, and for me the last, was the chest x-ray. The x-ray station was a bus parked in an alley behind the building. This was the first time I saw a man during this whole time. He wasn't the technician, but the driver. He just stood outside the bus and gestured to the chairs set up on the sidewalk. Because it was a bus, the area was small. Only three of us could be in there at a time. I was lucky, because I was in my work clothes and my office dress code is really corporate (except the colors) so I'm required to wear a camisole under my shirts. Other girls weren't as lucky, and had to strip for the x-ray. And, nothing reminds you that you're in a country where public baths are still a social thing like girls just stripping down like no one else is plastered next to them.
After all this mess, I had to go into work. That night, I had my receipt saying I visited for my health check. I'll know the results in a month or two. ...That is absolutely ridiculous. So, not only did it take months for me to get an appointment, but the appointment was inconvenient. The place was in a conference hall with a bunch of other people, all the stations run by technicians or volunteers with only two doctors present. The x-rays were done in an alleyway. And it'll take months for the results of the most standard, basic things that I know for a fact you can do in a 24-hour cycle.
I hate socialized healthcare.
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