Mental Health Problems after the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident and Those of 1945 Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivors

摘要

After the 2011 accident, I visited Fukushima prefecture twice to help people although I could not visit the exploded Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.The name of Fukushima has now become well-known worldwide after Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the third place exposed to radiation in Japan.This radiation pollution has severely damaged agriculture, fishery, and tourist industry in Fukushima prefecture. It has also stimulated strong anxious feelings among parents with young children. The accident has caused a critical situation in the psychiatric and mental Health services in Fukushima as well. Five hospitals with psychiatric beds within 30 km from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant were ordered to transfer their inpatients to other hospitals outside the designated 30 km-areas and to close down the hospitals immediately after the nuclear plant accident. In total, more than 800 psychiatric beds disappeared in an instance, and 1,228 persons including psychiatric inpatients and residents of elderly people nursing homes were transferred to other facilities far away.