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.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]