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The Great East Japan Earthquake
Message from JNA President
Facing the Great East Japan Earthquake that has struck us with such an unprecedented and devastating magnitude, I sincerely appreciate the deep sympathy and strong support from nurses and national nurses associations around the world, which is so caring and encouraging.
Japanese Nursing Association (JNA) was reorganized as a public interest incorporated association in this April and then I was elected the President at the General Convention in June, succeeding Dr. Setsuko Hisatsune. At the same Convention, JNA has determined to promote the "Reintegration Support Project after the Great East Japan Earthquake" as one of the top priority areas.
As the initial activity in the Project, we are now administering a survey of the affected nurses. In the survey, we send the questionnaire to individual nurses and their work place in order to confirm their safety and collect data concerning the damages cause to their body and residence and the actual situation of their employment. The findings will be utilized when we support the reconstruction of the nursing departments in the affected hospitals and the affected visiting nursing station.
In addition, JNA is engaged in a mid- to long term program to support the affected nurse or nurses who are taking care of the affected people. For this purpose, it is essential to provide livelihood support to those nurses as well as re-employment opportunity for the nurses who lost their job.
Although we are faced with so many issues in front of us, JNA will keep on working, making use of our performance with which we have been delivering effective interventions in a timely manner since the occurrence of the Earthquake.
President
Suga Sakamoto, RN, RNM, PhD
Early Phase Activities
Set up of task force for the disaster response
JNA set up a task force縲on March 11th in JNA headquarter following the Great East Japan Earthquake. We worked on to information gathering and support system in collaboration with prefectural nursing associations, relevant organizations and the national government.
Dispatch of Disaster Relief Nurses
After the earthquake on March 11th, JNA prepared to dispatch disaster relief nurses, who were volunteers, to the affected area. JNA decided to dispatch JNA executive officers and disaster relief nurses to the affected areas by JNA arranged buses. Ninety-four group which consists of 914 Disaster Relief Nurses in total did the relief activities in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima from March 21st to April 30th.
About one month from the disaster, it is now on the transition phase of the evacuees' life at evacuation centers and consolidation of the evacuation centers has been promoted. Furthermore, it is required the measure to employ necessary nursing staffs to respond prolonged disaster aftermath, as there were limitation of bridging activities of short-term volunteers.
JNA determined to finish the dispatch of the Disaster Relief Nurses nationally on April 30, and transited to the next phase, which is to scale down the dispatch of the nurses from nearby prefectural associations.
Activity Reports Disaster Relief Nurses縲ver.2[PDF1.1MB]
March 22nd
encouraging word from JNA President Hisatsune
departure from JNA
Information on Radiation Nursing
Emergency situation at the nuclear power plants caused by the disaster, JNA made DVDs about radiation nursing and provided them to prefectural nursing association.
Mid 窶 to long term support activities
Set up the Office of the Reintegration Support, The Great East Japan Earthquake
As the disaster scale is huge and widely affecting, it requires mid- to long term reintegration support and also requires the support for people to get back to daily life from the emergency situation. JNA set up the office of the reintegration support, the great east Japan earthquake with the objective to back up the proactive projects by the affected prefectural nursing associations.
Survey of the condition of the affected members
JNA is conducting the survey to find out actual condition of the members in the affected areas including confirmation of safety, unemployment and working conditions.
When we finalized the data, we'll post the findings on this website.
Actual situations of affected JNA members in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima (Interim Report)[PDF360KB]
Financial Support
We are very grateful for the warm messages and thoughtful donations from nursing colleagues around the world. Since 4 months has passed, JNA closed the donation campaign in July. Once again, JNA really appreciate the support and solidarity shown during the Great East Japan Earth Quake.
