15 Years On: Medical Care Key to Evacuees’ Return to Fukushima

Fukushima, March 1 (Jiji Press)–Many evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture cite anxiety about a lack of medical services as a reason for their hesitation to return to their hometowns devastated by a severe nuclear accident following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The prefecture’s Futaba county with eight towns and villages, including the host municipalities of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, was evacuated entirely due to the triple meltdown at the plant in northeastern Japan. More than half of the population who lived in Futaba just before the triple disaster are still living outside their hometowns, although evacuation orders have been lifted in many places in the county. The Reconstruction Agency and other organizations conduct annual surveys of evacuees from some municipalities in the prefecture. The most popular responses to a question about what is needed to decide on returning were “expansion of medical institutions” and “restoration of infrastructure such as hospitals.” In Fukushima, the number of medical institutions has plunged since the disaster. Many of the 132 medical facilities that had operated in the prefecture have suspended operations, leaving only 47 currently in service. In Futaba, the 30-bed Futaba Medical Center, which opened in 2018, is the only institution that can handle emergency patients in the county, where about 18,000 people live. “There is clearly a shortage of hospitals,” said Koichi Tanigawa, head of the prefecture-run center. Doctors are also in short supply. According to sources, Fukushima Medical University, which sends doctors to support the Futaba Medical Center, has struggled to secure enough personnel in recent years due to difficulties attracting trainees. In addition, many doctors show reluctance to work at hospitals in tsunami-hit coastal areas because of concerns about the living and educational environments there, with commercial facilities limited in number and classes held in temporary school buildings. Meanwhile, the prefectural government forecasts that the Futaba population will more than double. This is because researchers and other staff of a large-scale research institute established by the central government in Namie, one of the municipalities in the county, are expected to migrate to Namie and nearby areas. In addition, decommissioning work at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, which requires many workers, is expected to be protracted. In response, the prefectural government announced a plan in 2025 to establish in Okuma a hospital with about 250 beds that will play a core role for the entire county. Once completed, the facility would enable Futaba to cover almost all local needs for a wide range of medical services and emergency care. A doctor in his 70s returned to his coastal hometown in Futaba and reopened a hospital there after hearing a local assembly debate on the doctor shortage. In the community, some patients previously had to travel for an hour by car to receive treatment. “There are people here who need medical care,” the doctor said emphatically. “That alone makes it worth (reopening the hospital).” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]