Public hospital, Higashiyama-ku, by Tofukuji.
Japanese Red Cross Kyoto Daiichi Hospital
A 602-bed Red Cross hospital five minutes from Tofukuji station, with the 24-hour emergency and critical care centre nearest Kyoto Station and the Higashiyama sights.
Ambulance and fire: 119. Police: 110. Emergency consultation: #7119.
Show this to your driver
京都第一赤十字病院
Say “Kyoto Daiichi Sekijuji Byoin”, or show the driver 京都第一赤十字病院. It is five minutes’ walk from Tofukuji station on the JR Nara line and the Keihan line, one stop south of Kyoto Station; city buses 202, 207 and 208 stop at Tofukuji.
Kyoto Daiichi Sekijuji Byoin. The full name on the building is 日本赤十字社 京都第一赤十字病院.
- TypePublic in the Japanese sense — a hospital of the Japanese Red Cross Society, run neither by the state nor by the city but counted with Japan’s public medical institutions
- BedsAbout 602
- Address15-749 Honmachi, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto 605-0981, Japan
- Switchboard+81 75 561 1121
- Websitekyoto1.jrc.or.jp
- HoursEmergency and critical care centre staffed 24 hours; first-visit outpatient reception weekdays 8:30 to 11:30, closed weekends and public holidays
- LanguagesJapanese. The hospital states that it has no medical interpreters and asks patients who need one to bring their own, but publishes a link to an online call centre offering telephone support in English
- On the mapOpen in Google Maps
The hospital a visitor is most likely to need and most likely to reach. It sits beside Tofukuji station, one stop south of Kyoto Station, and its emergency and critical care centre runs around the clock, takes walk-in patients as well as ambulances, and describes its own policy as emergency care that turns nobody away. Outside the emergency department it works like any large Japanese hospital: weekday mornings, and a surcharge if you arrive without a referral letter.
What it is known for
Its emergency and critical care centre, which the hospital says covers primary, secondary and tertiary emergencies around the clock and receives roughly 7,000 ambulances a year. It states that it accepts walk-in patients as well, under a principle it puts plainly as emergency care that refuses nobody — not something every large Japanese hospital offers. Behind that sit 602 beds and a set of designations that tell you what it is trusted with: community medical support hospital, Kyoto Prefecture’s core disaster hospital, a regional cancer centre and a comprehensive perinatal and maternal-child centre. For a traveller the practical point is simpler. This is the nearest 24-hour emergency centre to Kyoto Station and the Higashiyama sights.
Who it suits
Anyone hurt or taken ill around Kyoto Station, Tofukuji, Fushimi Inari or the eastern temples, and anyone whose problem will not wait until a clinic opens. It suits a routine consultation far less well. First-visit outpatient reception runs on weekday mornings only, from 8:30 to 11:30, the hospital closes at weekends and on public holidays, and it asks patients to bring a referral letter and an appointment. The hospital also states that it has no medical interpreters and asks anyone who needs one to bring their own, so take a Japanese speaker if you possibly can.
Cost and insurance
A visitor without Japanese health insurance is treated as self-paying and owes the whole bill; the hospital says so directly. Arriving at the outpatient clinic without a referral letter adds a selection fee of 7,000 yen plus consumption tax. Using the emergency department for something that turns out not to be an emergency is charged at 7,700 yen in the daytime on weekdays, or 5,500 yen out of hours and on holidays — neither applies to a patient brought in by ambulance or admitted. Settle at the hospital and claim later; ask for an itemised receipt and a medical certificate before you leave.
Getting there
Tofukuji station is about five minutes’ walk away and sits on two lines: the JR Nara line, one stop from Kyoto Station, and the Keihan line up to Gion-Shijo and Sanjo. City buses 202, 207 and 208 stop at Tofukuji. Taxis know the hospital and the run from Kyoto Station is short, though the lanes around Tofukuji are narrow and clog badly in the autumn-leaf season. 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 Kyoto
- Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine HospitalPublic, about 1,055 beds, Kawaramachi-dori, north of Gion.
- Kyoto City HospitalPublic, about 538 beds, Mibu, west of Shijo-Omiya.