@Gimmy
You would REALLY be surprised. I worked in the non-emergency medical transportation business for a bit. Lots of hospitals in more rural areas were completely closed on the weekends or after certain hours at night. That included the ER. There simply aren’t enough patients in rural areas to financially justify keeping hospital emergency rooms open 24/7, which can result in the closest open ER being an hour away.
In fact, there are quite a few communities around the country in the US that no longer have ANY hospitals under an hour’s drive away due to the fact that their local one closed down. It’s a really serious issue that gets overlooked all the time, and it’s only going to continue getting worse.
@Kneel_Breen Isn't a big part of why a hospital differs from a clinic, the fact that a hospital is big enough to always have at least some presence? Besides, the hospital in this manga is in a proper city. I am already surprised they talk as if the city only has one hospital (afaik modern japanese cities are rather large (like, twice the area of an american city (only bothered to look up LA and washington, although washington is apparently over 100 times the size of LA, almost as if it covers the entire state of the same name))), which is why the hospital not being 24/7 surprises me even more.
@BlackHoleEyes in my area, even big hospital does that, but they are closing it off, but just accept emergency patient. Also in the weekend, the service somehow lighter than weekday.
So like, if you have backache and you want it treated, but it's weekend, the hospital will sent you off without doing anything.
But if you have traffic accident/heart attack..., hospital will treat you, that's all.