Public hospital, Chuo-ku, west of Odori.
Sapporo Medical University Hospital
The prefectural university hospital west of Odori — 844 beds, and what it calls the only advanced critical-care centre in Hokkaido, open around the clock.
Ambulance and fire: 119. Police: 110. Emergency consultation: #7119.
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札幌医科大学附属病院
Show a driver 「札幌医科大学附属病院」, or say 「医大病院」. It is three minutes from Nishi-18-chome station on the Tozai subway line, two stops west of Odori.
Locally, and on the bus stop outside, it is 医大病院 — the medical university hospital.
- TypePublic — teaching hospital of Sapporo Medical University, a public university corporation of Hokkaido
- BedsAbout 844
- AddressMinami 1-jo Nishi 16-chome 291, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-8543
- Switchboard+81 11 611 2111
- Ambulance and fire — nationwide, not the hospital119
- Websiteweb.sapmed.ac.jp/hospital
- HoursAdvanced critical-care centre open 24 hours, 365 days; first-visit outpatient reception 8.45am–11am
- LanguagesJapanese; no interpreter or English-language patient service is published beyond an automatic website translation
- On the mapOpen in Google Maps
The teaching hospital of Sapporo Medical University, a public university corporation of Hokkaido, with 844 beds and 32 departments on a block west of Odori. Its advanced critical-care centre — 高度救命救急センター, which the hospital states is the only one in the prefecture — runs 24 hours a day, every day, and takes the severe multiple trauma, burns, poisoning and cold-exposure cases that the rest of the island refers upward.
What it is known for
Its critical-care centre. The hospital describes it as 道内唯一の高度救命救急センター, the only advanced critical-care centre in Hokkaido, and lists what it takes: cardiac arrest, shock, acute coronary disease, multiple and special trauma, severe burns, severed limbs, severe infection, acute poisoning and injuries caused by the environment itself — which in this prefecture means cold. The centre states that it works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without closing, and describes its patients as arriving by ambulance and by helicopter. Behind it sits a full university hospital: 844 beds, 812 of them general, across 32 clinical departments.
Who it suits
Anyone seriously hurt or seriously ill, which in practice means anyone an ambulance brings here rather than anyone who chooses it. It is also the most usefully placed of the big hospitals for a visitor staying near Odori or Susukino, three minutes from a subway station on the line that runs under the city centre. It suits a walk-in patient less well: like every large Japanese hospital it expects a referral letter, its first-visit desk closes at 11am, and nothing about the reception process is conducted in English.
Cost and insurance
A visitor pays the whole bill. Without a referral letter the hospital adds 7,700 yen at a first visit to a medical department, or 5,500 yen at a dental one, on top of the treatment itself. That surcharge is a matter of national policy rather than this hospital’s preference, and it is not charged to emergency admissions. No direct billing of a foreign insurer is published, so plan to settle at the cashier and claim afterwards; keep the itemised receipt, and ask about an English-language medical certificate before you are discharged rather than after.
Getting there
Three minutes’ walk from exits 5 and 6 of Nishi-18-chome station on the Tozai subway line, which is two stops west of Odori, and three minutes from the Nishi-15-chome tram stop. From JR Sapporo Station the number 51 bus reaches the hospital’s own stop, 医大病院前, in about ten minutes. In winter allow more: the pavements are banked with snow and the crossings are slow. For an emergency do not travel here on your own initiative — call 119 and let the crew decide where to take you.
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 Sapporo
- Sapporo City General HospitalPublic, about 672 beds, Kita 11-jo Nishi 13-chome, next to JR Sōen.
- Tonan HospitalPublic, about 300 beds, Kita 4-jo Nishi 7-chome, five minutes from Sapporo Station.