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広島市立広島市民病院
Say “Shimin Byoin”, or show the driver 広島市立広島市民病院. It is about seven minutes’ walk from the Kamiyacho-higashi and Kamiyacho-nishi tram stops at the top of Hondori, and five minutes from Kencho-mae on the Astram line.
Hiroshima Shiritsu Hiroshima Shimin Byoin, usually shortened to 市民病院, Shimin Byoin. The hospital’s own English pages call it Hiroshima City Hospital.
- TypePublic — the city’s own hospital, run by the Hiroshima City Hospital Organization
- BedsAbout 743
- Address7-33 Motomachi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima 730-8518, Japan
- Switchboard+81 82 221 2291
- Websitecity-hosp.naka.hiroshima.jp
- HoursDesignated an emergency and critical care centre; out-of-hours emergency reception is taken in the east building from 17:00 on weekdays and all day on the days the clinics are closed. Outpatient reception without an appointment weekdays 8:30 to 11:00; closed Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays, 6 August and 29 December to 3 January
- LanguagesJapanese, with a short English section of its website which says the hospital provides emergency medical care from primary to tertiary. It states nothing about English-speaking staff or medical interpreters; the interpreter service it does publish is Japanese sign language
- Opened1952
- On the mapOpen in Google Maps
Hiroshima’s municipal hospital, on the flat ground beside the castle at Motomachi, with 743 beds and the city’s emergency and critical care centre. Its own pages describe the ambition plainly: a North American-style emergency room giving first treatment across primary, secondary and tertiary cases, and an emergency control function that takes in patients other hospitals have found hard to place. Outside the emergency department it behaves like any large Japanese hospital — weekday mornings, a referral letter and an appointment expected, and 7,700 yen if you arrive without one.
What it is known for
Being the city’s own hospital and the centre of its emergency system. It opened in 1952, holds 743 beds and carries the designations that say what it is trusted with: emergency and critical care centre, regional medical support hospital, one of Hiroshima Prefecture’s disaster base hospitals, a regional cancer centre and a comprehensive perinatal and maternal-child centre. Its emergency pages set out the ambition in its own words — a North American-style emergency room giving first treatment across primary, secondary and tertiary cases, and an emergency control function that takes in patients other hospitals have found hard to place. For a visitor the practical point is simpler. This is the big hospital in the middle of the city.
Who it suits
Anyone taken ill or hurt around the Peace Memorial Park, Hondori, the castle or the prefectural offices, and anyone whose problem will not wait for a clinic to open. It suits a routine consultation less well. A first visit is expected to come with a referral letter and an appointment, walk-in outpatient reception runs 8:30 to 11:00 on weekdays only, and the hospital is closed at weekends, on public holidays, over the new year and on 6 August, the anniversary, which is the single busiest visitor day of the Hiroshima year. Its out-of-hours emergency reception is for adults of high-school age and above with mainly non-injury problems; children go instead to the city’s Funairi hospital, which takes paediatric medical cases but not fractures or burns.
Cost and insurance
A visitor without Japanese health insurance is treated as self-paying and owes the whole bill, not the thirty per cent a resident pays. Arriving for a first visit without a referral letter adds 7,700 yen including tax at the medical departments, or 5,500 yen at the dental ones; the hospital publishes both figures. It publishes no separate out-of-hours emergency surcharge. Settle at the cashier before you leave — the machines take cash and cards, and after hours they run from 17:00 through to 8:30 the next morning — then claim from your own insurer. Ask for an itemised receipt, and if you will need one, ask early for an English medical certificate, which is a separate paid document.
Getting there
Take the tram. City lines stop at Kamiyacho-higashi and Kamiyacho-nishi, both about seven minutes’ walk and both at the top of the Hondori shopping street, roughly sixteen minutes out from JR Hiroshima Station. The Astram line stops at Kencho-mae, five minutes away. Buses run to Kamiyacho, Kenchomae and to a stop called Shimin Byoin-mae outside the hospital itself. On foot it is a flat fifteen minutes or so from the Atomic Bomb Dome, past the castle moat. There is parking, and it is charged. In a real emergency do not make your own way here: dial 119, which is free, and let the crew decide.
Details checked against the hospital’s own website, September 2026. Call before a non-urgent visit; in an emergency call 119 or the hospital’s own emergency line above. Travel information, not medical advice.
The other 2 hospitals in Hiroshima
- Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital and Atomic-bomb Survivors HospitalPublic, about 565 beds, Sendamachi, with its own tram stop.
- JA Hiroshima General HospitalPublic, about 460 beds, Hatsukaichi, four tram stops from the Miyajima ferry.