The first medical institution to open in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, since the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant began welcoming patients Tuesday.
Residents who returned after evacuating and who have been traveling long distances to see their current doctors expressed joy that the burden will be greatly reduced.
Evacuation orders are still in effect for a wide area of the town.
Okuma Town Clinic opened in the Ogawara district, where the evacuation order was lifted in April 2019. There was no opening ceremony due to the coronavirus pandemic. Townspeople arrived when the doors opened at 8:45 a.m., and the first examination began at 9 a.m. as scheduled.
The clinic is open only on Tuesday mornings for the time being.
Tsugio Sato, 72, was one of the patients. Sato returned from Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, in the autumn of 2019 and now lives in a nearby public housing complex.
He has a chronic heart condition and has been driving to a hospital in Iwaki once a month with his wife, 70, a trip that took about one hour each way. Sato is unsure how long he will be able to continue driving, so having a clinic just a few minutes' walk from home is reassuring.
"I'm relieved," Sato said.
Kenshiro Yamauchi, 36, is the clinic's doctor and has been sent from Minamisoma Municipal General Hospital. Yamauchi has ample medical experience in remote areas as he worked at a clinic in Tadami-machi, a small town in western Fukushima where the population is declining.
"I want to be a primary care doctor patients feel comfortable talking to," he said enthusiastically.
As of Jan. 1, 285 residents had returned to Okuma after the evacuation order was partially lifted, which is less than 3% of the pre-disaster population. According to a survey conducted between September and October last year by the town government and the Reconstruction Agency, 59.5% of former residents said they would not return to the town, while 26.2% had not yet decided whether to go back. Only 9.6% said they wanted to return.
More than 80% of those who said they wanted to return cited the need to improve basic medical care facilities as an essential part of daily life in the town. However, no medical institutions such as the prefectural Ono Hospital, which was located in the town before the accident, are expected to reopen.
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