Fukuoka, Japan. 3 major hospitals, 2 public, 1 private.
Three major hospitals a foreign visitor has a realistic chance of being treated at — two public, one private — with addresses, phone numbers, bed counts, referral rules and maps.
Police: 110.
If you only read one thing
None of the three is a walk-in hospital and all three add ¥7,700 to a first visit made without a referral letter — but in a genuine emergency none of that applies: call 119 and the crew decide where you go.
Fukuoka is the easiest big city in Japan to arrive in and one of the harder ones to fall ill in. The airport is a few minutes by subway from Hakata Station, the tourist city is compact — Hakata, Nakasu, Tenjin and Ohori Park sit within a handful of subway stops of one another — and the medicine is excellent. What is difficult is the door. Japan’s large hospitals are built to be the second step rather than the first: they expect a referral letter from a neighbourhood clinic, they charge a surcharge to patients who arrive without one, and they take first visits on weekday mornings only.
So this page is not a ranking of the best hospitals in Kyushu. It lists the three a visitor has a realistic chance of being seen at — the one certified for foreign patients, the one that says it can find you an English or Mandarin speaker, and the one an ambulance will take you to from the Ohori Park and seafront side of the city — with what each of them will and will not do for someone who walks up without a letter. Every name opens a full page with the address, the phone number and a map. Details were checked against each hospital’s own website in September 2026. If this is an emergency, stop reading and call 119.
| Hospital | Type | Beds | Where | Phone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kyushu University Hospital | Public | 1242 | Maidashi-Kyudaibyoin-mae station | +81 92 641 1151 |
| Fukuoka University Hospital | Private | 771 | Fukudai-mae, Nanakuma Line | +81 92 801 1011 |
| Kyushu Medical Center | Public | 694 | Jigyohama, by Ohori Park | +81 92 852 0700 |
Bed counts are approximate. Tap a name for the full page.
The one hospital in Fukuoka certified under Japan’s JMIP scheme for foreign patients — a 1,242-bed national university hospital with its own subway station.
3-1-1 Maidashi, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8582
+81 92 641 1151 / Website / Google Maps
Read the full pageA 771-bed private university hospital on the Nanakuma subway line, with a round-the-clock critical care centre and staff who can support a patient in English or Mandarin.
7-45-1 Nanakuma, Jonan-ku, Fukuoka 814-0180
+81 92 801 1011 / Website / Google Maps
Read the full pageThe national hospital at Jigyohama, beside Ohori Park and the seafront towers — 694 beds and the tertiary emergency centre for the west of the city.
1-8-1 Jigyohama, Chuo-ku, Fukuoka 810-8563
+81 92 852 0700 / Website / Google Maps
Read the full pageStart from where you are staying. From Hakata or Nakasu, Kyushu University Hospital is two subway stops away on the Hakozaki Line, at a station named after it, and it is the one hospital in the city certified under Japan’s JMIP scheme for treating foreign patients. From Hakata Station or Tenjin-Minami, the Nanakuma Line runs directly to Fukuoka University Hospital, which says it can put an English or Mandarin speaker with you and keeps a critical care centre open around the clock. Kyushu Medical Center, out at Jigyohama beside Ohori Park and the seafront towers, is the tertiary emergency hospital for that side of the city — but read its page before you set off, because it says plainly that it does not take patients who arrive on their own.
More than you expect, because none of it is subsidised for you. Japan’s national health insurance covers residents at about seventy per cent, a visitor sits outside it and pays the whole bill, and two of these three hospitals charge overseas patients above the domestic tariff — Fukuoka University at twice the standard point rate, Kyushu University at three times it. On top of that sits the referral surcharge: ¥7,700 at all three for a first visit without a letter from a clinic, ¥3,300 at Fukuoka University if you keep returning after being referred elsewhere, and a further ¥11,000 there for a first visit outside normal hours. A straightforward consultation with a few tests can therefore pass ¥20,000 before any treatment begins. Ask for the estimate.
Assume you are paying and claiming. Japanese hospitals rarely bill a foreign insurer directly and none of these three advertises that it will; the normal arrangement is that you settle at the cashier in cash or by card at the end of the visit and send the paperwork to your insurer afterwards. Ring the assistance number on your policy first if there is time — it can open the claim and, more usefully here, may be able to arrange an interpreter. Take your passport, your residence card if you have one, your policy number and a list of anything you take regularly. Before you leave, ask for an itemised receipt and a medical certificate in English: both are routine requests, but neither is produced automatically.
The subway does most of the work. The Hakozaki Line runs from Nakasu-Kawabata to Maidashi-Kyudaibyoin-mae, the station under Kyushu University Hospital; the Nanakuma Line runs from Hakata Station and Tenjin-Minami to Fukudai-mae for Fukuoka University Hospital, about twenty and sixteen minutes respectively; Kyushu Medical Center is a sixteen-minute walk from Tojinmachi on the Airport Line, or a direct bus from Tenjin or Hakata Station to the Kyushu Medical Center-mae stop. Taxis are metered, plentiful and will work from a printed address or a map pin. For an ambulance, dial 119: the call and the ride are free, the crew choose the hospital, and the referral rule does not apply to them. Give your location first, then the problem, slowly.
A large Japanese hospital is meant to be reached through a small one. Arrive at any of these three without a letter from a clinic and ¥7,700 is added to the bill — the 選定療養費, a charge the state requires big hospitals to levy so that routine cases stay with local doctors, and it buys you nothing. The way round it is an hour at a neighbourhood clinic: the doctor treats what can be treated and writes the letter if it cannot. Of the three, Fukuoka University Hospital comes closest to taking a visitor directly, though it warns that some departments are appointment-only and that people who live abroad should make contact first; Kyushu University Hospital runs on referral and appointment; Kyushu Medical Center states that its emergency department is for ambulance cases and its own patients. In a real emergency none of this applies — call 119.
Japanese pharmacies are useful but limited. A drugstore — the chains are all over Tenjin and Hakata — sells painkillers, cold remedies, rehydration salts, stomach medicine and dressings over the counter, and the larger branches keep a registered pharmacist on duty. What they cannot sell you is an antibiotic, which needs a prescription from a doctor, and over-the-counter doses are often lower than the equivalent at home. A dispensing pharmacy, 調剤薬局, sits beside almost every clinic and fills prescriptions on the spot. If you take something regularly, bring it and bring the box: staff can usually identify a drug from its packaging far faster than from its English name.
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Travel information, not medical advice.