Elderly patients left to die in hospital six miles from Japan's stricken nuclear power plant

dailymail.co.uk ^ | March 18 2011 | By Daily Mail Reporter

[NoLibZone]

The elderly are being abandoned to die in Japanese hospitals and care homes devastated by the tsunami amid a worsening humanitarian and nuclear disaster.

Hundreds of thousands of victims have been made homeless, with more than 400,000 struggling to survive in emergency shelters with no power and little food or water.

As the official death toll hit 6,539, it emerged that soldiers found 128 pensioners deserted by medical staff at a hospital in Iwaki, six miles from the Fukushima nuclear power station and inside the exclusion zone around the plant which continues to spew radiation into the atmosphere.

Most of the abandoned patients were in coma, and 14 died shortly after they were moved to an emergency centre in a nearby gym.

Another eleven pensioners reportedly died in a retirement home in Kesenumma, six days after 47 other residents of the home were killed in the tsunami.

The death toll is expected to rise further with 10,354 victims missing - but local officials claim the real figure is several times that number after whole towns were flattened by the tsunami.

Japan has a high proportion of elderly citizens and many of them are now struggling to survive in shelters without heating or electricity as supplies of food and medicine run low.

Fukushima official Chuei Inamura said the abandoned pensioners were found in Iwaki on Monday, as several explosions rocked the nearby Fukushima nuclear plant.

He said: 'We feel very helpless and very sorry for them,' Inamura said. 'The condition at the gymnasium was horrible. No running water, no medicine and very, very little food. We simply did not have means to provide good care.

[Boardwalk]

Prayers!!

[smokingfrog]

I remember when some old folks were abandoned during Katrina too. Some of these people no doubt depend on life support machines, which don’t work without a reliable power source.

[Freddd]

With Obama we won’t have to worry about it, need a heart surgery? you get the red pill or the blue pill..

[red tie]

True, and lots of medicines.

[GeronL]

triage death panels?

I also saw an article on the new orphans

[iowamark]

Much is made of Japan’s low crime rate, but they have a strong abortion/euthanasia culture of death.

[dragnet2]

Watch Rarry H. Parker open an office there.

[catbertz]

Lol

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I’m guessing that prefecture didn’t get an Obama-Care waiver.

[1_Rain_Drop]

Thank God these people were found. That's all that matters. That they were found is also a miracle.

I don't know what I would do if I was elderly in a hospital in this surreal situation. I'd probably tell my, younger than me nurse, to go and take care of her own family while there's still a chance for survival.

Prayers for Japan, and this included every crawling bug also.

[mylife]

I realize the place is wreckage, but cant we airlift some food and water into there?

[bvw]

Logistical emergencies like this one are what the proposed Boeing Pelican Ultra Large Transport Aircraft would excel at.

[scorchedearther]

Hey you do not need any “death panels” when you have folks who either do not give a damn or are just plain selfish and negligent.

[Joe Boucher]

There were lots of terrible stories of the New Orleans Katrina.
The abandonment of the folks in that hospital was criminal.
As was the police officers shooting folks on that bridge,
The looting, specially those police officers in the Wal-Mart taking a big screen T.V.
Here in Port St. Lucie, Florida we had three hurricanes in two years and I didn’t see any of this kind of shit.
Prayers for the good folks of Japan.
As for the scum?

[Twinkie]

Then get turned into Soylent Green . . . .

[Georgia Girl 2]

Yes Barry will make sure we don’t live long enough to end up in assisted living.

[ADemocratNoMore]

Also, from what I've heard, many of the aged and infirm patients of hospitals and nursing homes who were evacuated from the “radiation zone” (where they might develop negative health effects if they lived another 30 or 40 years), have been dying after winding up in the shelters where they have no heat etc.

On the other hand, some of the now homeless survivors of the disaster have found shelters that have plenty of heat, running water and electricity - the rest of Japan's now shut down but still standing nuke plants that survived the quake undamaged!.

[Balding_Eagle]

The elderly are being abandoned to die in Japanese hospitals and care homes devastated by the tsunami amid a worsening humanitarian and nuclear disaster.

I find this hard to believe. It seems inconsistant with all of the other stories coming out of Jpan.