Japan to Establish DMAT Secretariats in Hokkaido, Kyushu

Tokyo, May 1 (Jiji Press)--Japan's health ministry will establish a secretariat for the disaster medical assistance team, or DMAT, program in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido and another in the Kyushu southwestern region within fiscal 2026, which started last month.

By creating the two more offices, in addition to the existing secretariats in Tokyo and the western city of Osaka, the ministry aims to speed up response to regional disasters and have wide-area bases to deal better with large-scale disasters, such as a powerful earthquake that is predicted to occur in the Nankai Trough in the Pacific off central to southwestern Japan.

DMATs are teams of professionals specially trained to provide medical assistance immediately after disasters strike. Each unit basically comprises one doctor, two nurses and one coordinator.

As of April 2025, some 19,000 people were registered with the program.

In normal times, the DMAT secretariats, managed by the government-affiliated Japan Institute for Health Security, offer medical care training in preparation for disasters. Once a disaster occurs, secretariat staff will be sent to prefectural response headquarters and medical institutions to collect information, provide advice and coordinate dispatches of DMATs.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]