Flying operating room eyed, Japan

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 26 Nov 2004 - 12:00 PDT


The Japanese government plans to introduce a system to transport patients who are heavily wounded or in otherwise serious conditions from areas hit by major disasters or by terrorist attacks to hospitals in unaffected areas using Air Self-Defense Force C-130 transport aircraft, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Wednesday.

The Defense Agency will develop by fiscal 2006 a container-type "mobile medical unit" that will allow surgery to be performed on board without affecting the flight, a government source said.

Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office will draw up by fiscal 2007 a wide-area conveyance program, designed to convey wounded people and other patients in the case of a Tokai earthquake. The office will later draw up nationwide conveyance programs.

At the time of a major disaster, it is highly likely that hospitals in the affected area will stop functioning, while those in neighboring areas will reach operating capacity, making it necessary for the wounded and other patients to be transported to areas unaffected by such disasters.

The Central Disaster Prevention Council, chaired by the prime minister, has assumed that if a Tokai earthquake of the same magnitude as the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake occurs, it will be necessary to transport about 600 people in need of emergency treatment away from the quake-affected area to elsewhere in the Kanto region, or even to the Kansai and Kyushu regions.

In transporting such wounded or seriously ill patients who need emergency treatment via aircraft, situations could arise in which they might need to undergo operations aboard. This, however, could lead to such problems as:

-- Electromagnetic waves from such medical devices as electrocardiographs could affect the flight……. CONTINUES…….www.yomiuri.co.jp

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