#8000 Japan: After-Hours Pediatric Advice

#8000 is Japan's after-hours pediatric triage line, the number for parents unsure what a child's night or weekend symptoms require.¹² Pediatric-experienced nurses advise whether the ER, an after-hours clinic, or a morning pediatrician visit fits.¹³

Confirm current details with official sources

Procedures, fees, and requirements can change. Confirm current details at your prefecture's #8000 guidance page and the Japan Pediatric Society site.

Overview

Dial #8000 on evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays when a child falls suddenly ill or gets hurt outside clinic hours.¹ Each prefecture operates its own line, so hours and details differ by area; major urban areas are the most reliable.³⁴ Calls route to the consultation service of your prefecture.⁵

This article owns the call mechanics: the triage flow, prefecture hours and fallback numbers, and language bridges for foreign parents. Pediatric-care judgment itself belongs to the healthcare pillar counterpart linked at the end. Here, reaching the nurse.

When #8000 Helps Most

Picture the classic case: a young child spikes a fever with vomiting at 11pm, and no clinic opens for ten hours.² Professional pediatric triage beats a DIY decision at exactly that moment, and the line exists for it.¹

Hospital guidance frames the trigger plainly: a young child in the family falls sick on a weekend, holiday, or night, and the guardian cannot decide about a hospital visit.² Worry plus ambiguity is the qualifying condition. When the answer is already clear, skip the line: obvious emergencies go to 119, and clearly minor sniffles wait for morning.²

How the Pediatric Triage Call Works

The parent describes the child's symptoms; the nurse advises on home care versus a clinic or ER visit.¹³ Aomori's service pairs nurses with pediatric doctors who set the consultation guidelines and home-nursing advice.³

What the nurse asks

Expect questions on the symptom timeline, the child's age, temperature readings, fluid intake, alertness, and medical history.¹³ Take the temperature and note fluids before dialing; measured facts get better guidance than impressions. If the line is busy, wait a while and redial.³

Advice, not diagnosis

The consultation gives advice and information on emergency measures for sudden illness or injury. It does not direct treatment, because it rests on what was heard by phone.³⁴ Treat the guidance as a routing decision with home-care instructions, not a diagnosis, and go in when the nurse says go.⁴

Measure before you dial

Temperature, time of onset, last fluids, and last wet diaper or bathroom visit answer half the nurse's questions. A 60-second check before calling shortens the call and sharpens the advice.³

Hours and Coverage by Prefecture

Every prefecture runs its own #8000 desk with its own hours, target ages, and fallback number (as of the dates shown; confirm current terms with your prefecture).³⁴ Evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays are the covered core everywhere; the exact windows differ.¹

Area	Hours	If #8000 fails to connect	As of
Tokyo	Mon-Fri 18:00-08:00; Sat, Sun, holidays 08:00-08:00; Japanese	03-5285-8898	2026-091
Saga	Daily 19:00-08:00; guardians of children under 15	0952-24-2200	2023-04-214
Aomori	Weekdays 18:00-08:00; Sat from 13:00; Sun and holidays 24h; parents of children under 16	017-722-1152	2025-08-063
Hiroshima	Daily 19:00-08:00	082-555-8870	2026-096
Osaka area	19:00-08:00; Japanese	06-6765-3650	2026-07-307

Aomori expanded its hours on April 1, 2021, and treats Obon and the year-end period as holidays.³ Travelers should look up the destination prefecture's hours and fallback before the trip.³⁴

Language and the Translation-App Bridge

Tokyo #8000 operates in Japanese.¹ Many prefectures are Japanese-default, with multilingual support in some areas only.³ Foreign parents have two practical bridges: a translation app or a Japanese-fluent friend on the call, and the online backup below.¹

The Japan Pediatric Society runs Kodomono QQ Kids Emergency, a symptom checker in Japanese, English, and Chinese that guides the hospital-or-home decision when the phone line is busy or the hour is uncovered.¹ Bookmark it next to the number.

Do not wait out worrying symptoms for language reasons

A Japanese-default line with a translation app still beats no call. Describe, point the phone at the child for coughs or rashes, and let the nurse ask yes-or-no questions.¹

Good to know

Save the fallback number for dial lines and dead hours

#8000 fails from some dial-line, IP, and public phones, and every prefecture publishes a full-length fallback.³⁴ Store your prefecture's fallback next to #8000 now; looking it up mid-fever wastes the worst minutes.

Kodomo QQ backs up the phone line online

The Japan Pediatric Society checker covers the same decision (hospital now or home care) in three languages.¹ It also helps parents learn which urgency signs nurses ask about, which improves the next real call.

The healthcare counterpart owns the pediatric-care side

This article covers reaching the nurse. Pediatric-care judgment, after-hours clinic navigation, and ER preparation live in the healthcare pillar guide to the #8000 line and its companion articles, linked below. Read mechanics here, medicine there.

See also

• #8000: The After-Hours Pediatric Line
• Calling 119: When and How
• What to Bring to the ER
• 7119: Japan's Non-Emergency Medical Consultation Line
• Booking a Doctor in Japan
• #7119 Japan: Non-Emergency Medical Advice

References

Footnotes

1. Tokyo Intercultural Portal (Tokyo Tsunagari). "In Case of a Sudden Illness, Incident, or Accident" (English guide). https://tabunka.tokyo-tsunagari.or.jp/useful/guide_eng/accident/01.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

2. Showa Medical University Hospital. "Emergency Care" (English guide). https://www.showa-u.ac.jp/SUH/en/guide/emergency.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. Aomori Prefecture. "Children's Medical Telephone Consultation (#8000)" (updated 2025-08-06). https://www.pref.aomori.lg.jp.e.aqh.hp.transer.com/soshiki/kenko/iryo/kodomoqq.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

4. Saga Prefecture. "Pediatric emergency medical telephone consultation (#8000)" (updated 2023-04-21). https://www.pref.saga.lg.jp.e.zg.hp.transer.com/kiji00334475/index.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

5. Rakuwakai Otowa Hospital (Kyoto). "Emergency and Critical Care Center / Kyoto ER" (English page). https://rakuwa-otowa.jp/en-hp/kyukyu/ ↩

6. City of Hiroshima. "Emergency Medical Care Afterhours" (English page). https://www.city.hiroshima.lg.jp/english/emergency/1029783/1009500.html ↩

7. City of Sakai. "After-hours Medical Help" (updated 2026-07-30). https://www.city.sakai.lg.jp/foreign-language/english/visitors/living/healthcare/afterhoursmedical.html ↩