Medical teams help evacuees at isolated shelters

KAMAISHI, Iwate Prefecture--Wearing rain boots and carrying backpacks, a team of medical workers carefully picked their way over makeshift "roads" of old tatami spread over piles of rubble Thursday. They were heading for a "shelter" for people who lost their homes in the Great East Japan Earthquake and massive tsunami on March 11. The Japanese Red Cross Society team from Hokkaido opened an aid station at a closed junior high school in Kamaishi on March 15. The next day, a woman came pleading for them to help the elderly people at her shelter. With medicines, disinfectants, bandages and other supplies, three of the team's seven members walked through the debris and arrived at Saiwai-ro, a long-established Japanese restaurant. It was the woman's "shelter" that had taken in about 70 neighbors. "I lost my medicines in the tsunami," said one. "I can't sleep," said another, while the doctor and nurses took their blood pressure and gave them medicine. Yaeko Sasaki, 73, who was trapped on her balcony for 24 hours after the tsunami, said, "I wanted to see a doctor because I was beginning to worry about my health." Her blood pressure turned out to be a bit high, but after the Red Cross team told her she was OK, Sasaki looked relieved. At the restaurant, the aid team was told that Saiwai-ro was not the only ad hoc shelter opened out of goodwill in the area. Some private homes in the hilly neighborhood had also taken in people. The team visited seven homes to examine elderly victims and others who had caught colds or were experiencing other problems. On the same day, another member of the team made the rounds of temples and other shelters in the city. At one location, the nurse was asked by an older woman to treat her injured husband. The husband was the director of an obstetrics and gynecology clinic. He had cut his leg badly during the tsunami, but all the medicine at the clinic had been swept away. The injured doctor had remained on the third-floor of his tsunami-hit clinic, unable to treat his own injuries. The Red Cross team arrived at Kamaishi by ferry from Date, Hokkaido. As soon as the team set up a tent the first night, evacuees began streaming in. More followed the next morning. As snow fell last week, many evacuees caught colds. One man complained of chest pains and was rushed by ambulance to a hospital. Of the 301 people the team saw at the aid station from March 15 to 18, the largest number reported suffering from insomnia. "I haven't been able to sleep at night since the quake," 75-year-old Ryoko Tamura told the doctor. "I fled without taking anything. My home was flooded and I lost all my possessions. What should I do from now on?" According to the team, many evacuees suffer from high blood pressure and insomnia due to stress from losing loved ones or homes. Many didn't use what toilets were available "because they were dirty," and developed constipation. Others lost all their medicine in the tsunami. The Red Cross has set up similar aid stations at seven evacuation centers in Iwate Prefecture and sent medical personnel to tour nearby shelters. One team consists of a doctor, four nurses and two others. They work 72-hour-shifts with little time to rest or sleep before they are relieved by another team. About 40 medical teams, from the Red Cross, Iwate Medical University and other institutions, are providing care. But of the 332 shelters in the prefecture accommodating 49,500 people, medical care is reaching only 60 to 70 percent, according to the prefectural government. Like the victims at Saiwai-ro, people who have difficulty moving around are staying with their neighbors or at private facilities. Because of disrupted telephone lines, the prefecture is unable to collect information on all such "shelters." As a result, medical services are not reaching many of these small shelters. Many evacuees suffer from serious stress due to the shock of losing their relatives and the tough life at the shelters. "Some people just continue to talk. They need someone to listen," said Sanae Kimoto, 48, a chief nurse at Date Red Cross Hospital, which dispatched the Date team. "I'm trying to listen carefully, hoping that it might, if only a little bit, relieve their stress." Hiroshi Gyobu, a 43-year-old doctor who led the Date hospital team, said measures must be taken swiftly to improve hygiene at shelters. "The environment needs to be improved quickly," he said. "People are getting close to their limits, both mentally and physically."