Pediatric perspective on the disaster-stricken area 'yamada- machi'

摘要

On March 11, 2011, a catastrophic earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck northeastern Japan. This disaster produced a massive number of casualties that outstripped the ability of the local health care system to provide the required care. To provide medical services for the victims, Showa University organized a medical team. From March 15 to April 16, 2011, 7 teams were sent to Yamada-machi, located on the east coast of Iwate Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The drugs prepared are shown in Table 1. Each team consisting of several medical professionals (Table 2) stayed there for 6 to 8 days. One pediatrician was included in the first 4 and the last teams. Here, we report the views of these pediatricians who worked in the disaster-stricken area. On March 15, 4 days after the earthquake, our team arrived at Yarnada-rnachi, which has a resident popula.-tion of approximately 18 000 and only 1 public hospital, Yamada Hospital, a 2-story building. Its first floor was completely devastated and the lifelines were disrupted. We finally established our base on the second floor. Electricity was supplied only by a small private electric generator. Most of the smaller medical facilities in the town had collapsed and were incapable of functioning. It was difficult to arrange patient referrals because telephone lines were down, affecting even cellular service. Instead, we contacted our teammates using transceivers. Clinical pediatric care was mainly provided in a classroom at Yamada Minami Elementary School. We also visited patients at their homes and the Orikasa and Kusaki evacuation areas. The Disaster Medical Assistant Team completed the triage, allowing us to focus on providing clinical care for patients with chronic diseases, which may have deteriorated because of the discontinuance of drugs swept away by the tsunami along with prescription records.