June 24, 2015

Nuclear regulators to revise medical care plan

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150624_24.html

Jun. 24, 2015 - Updated 07:54 UTC+2

Japan's nuclear regulators have come up with a revised plan to provide emergency medical care to residents after accidents at nuclear power plants.

The government has until now helped set up hospitals near nuclear plants to treat small numbers of workers exposed to radiation in accidents.

But in the 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, local medical facilities were unable to adequately treat the many residents thought to have been exposed to radiation.

At their meeting in Tokyo on Wednesday, officials of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, or NRA, presented a draft of revised guidelines for creating a network of medical facilities.
The plan proposes that prefectures within 30 kilometers of plants designate 1 to 3 hospitals as base facilities to deal with nuclear disasters.

The hospitals are to have teams of experts treat patients after accidents and go to other prefectures where nuclear accidents occur.

The draft also calls for designating hospitals and other facilities within around 30 kilometers of nuclear plants as “cooperating organizations." The facilities would check evacuees for exposure to radiation and treat the injured and sick.

The NRA is to decide on the revised guidelines after soliciting opinions from the public for 30 days from Thursday.