In Japan, half of military spouse health workers unemployed amid 'shortage' of providers

On DoD

Federal News Network has covered the difficulties federal employees and military members have seen when it comes to getting access to health care in Japan. On this edition of the show, we’re going to talk about that – but not just about that. We’re also going to talk about military spouse unemployment. In the case of Japan, and Okinawa specifically, the two things are very related. A new report by a volunteer group of experts called Hire Oki Spouses found there are actually plenty of spouses in Okinawa with health care expertise who could be working as nurses, for example, to solve the provider shortage there. They’re just not being hired.

On the show this time, we’re joined by two of the co-authors of the report who’ve both lived in Okinawa recently and seen a lot of these issues firsthand:

Elayne Saejung is an Air Force spouse and public health researcher

Kelly Pretorius, is Ph.D. health care researcher and licensed nurse practitioner