ADR center cheating on victims

July 21, 2014

Nuke disaster center skipping expert opinion, cutting proposed victim compensation

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140721p2a00m0na010000c.html 

The government alternative dispute resolution (ADR) center tasked with managing compensation claims against Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) by victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster has consistently finalized payouts over deaths while in evacuation and lasting injuries without consulting third-party medical experts, it has been learned.

The Nuclear Damage Claim Dispute Resolution Center has stated that it has forgone soliciting medical opinions to speed up the compensation process. There are, however, multiple cases where the center has pushed aside the medical opinions of the victims' doctors and proposed small compensation amounts.

The ADR center's internal regulations state that "testimony from experts can be heard" during resolution proceedings, which would include statements by third-party doctors. The Mainichi Shimbun has discovered, however, that in three cases of death related to the nuclear disaster and two of injuries leading to permanent disabilities, the ADR center did not admit any expert medical testimony.

In one of these cases, medical opinions from two doctors submitted by a 66-year-old disaster victim from Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, were simply overturned by the ADR center.

Before the meltdowns at the No. 1 plant, the 66-year-old woman did have a history of high blood pressure, but had no other medical problems and had no trouble doing household tasks. She was evacuated from her home on March 12, 2011; the day after the nuclear disaster broke out in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. Ten days later, at a gymnasium being used as an evacuation center, she lost consciousness while sitting on the toilet. She was taken by emergency medical transport to a hospital in the city of Fukushima.

There, she was diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage, and the damage was severe. After a long rehabilitation process, she is finally able to move her left arm and leg a little, but still has no feeling in either limb. She cannot walk without a cane.

The woman's house is inside the nuclear evacuation zone, so she's living with her second son and three grandkids in a rented apartment. Once when she was trying to cook for the family, she was surprised to see blood gushing from her paralyzed left hand. She had sliced it open with a kitchen knife and hadn't even noticed. Unable to help out around the house, "I've sometimes thought it'd be better if I was dead," she says.

The woman collected the informed medical opinions of three doctors to submit to the ADR center. The doctor who examined her when she'd been rushed to the hospital in Fukushima in 2011 stated that the "impact level" of the nuclear disaster on her condition was "unknown." Her family doctor and another who oversaw her rehabilitation, however, both declared that her hemorrhage had "almost entirely" been due to the stress imposed by the meltdowns.

TEPCO submitted the opinion of another doctor who pegged the disaster's role in the woman's brain hemorrhage at "around 50 percent." The doctor, however, had never examined the woman. Despite this and the conflicting diagnoses, the ADR center never sought a third-party medical opinion. In August 2013, the center declared that the woman's hemorrhage was indeed only 50 percent due to the disaster, and proposed final compensation in the amount of 7 million yen. The center gave no explanation for why it chose the same rate as the TEPCO doctor.

Even so, the woman approved the amount the following October, saying, "I'm already an old woman. I have no choice."

The woman's son, who found out that the ADR center had not sought a third-party medical opinion only after the compensation amount had been finalized, told the Mainichi, "I wish they'd asked an expert about it. If this is how the system works, then there's no point in applying (to the ADR center)."

Hiroshi Noyama, former head of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry section that serves as secretariat to the ADR center, told the Mainichi that the center "does not interview experts. If it carefully solicited expert opinion regarding every claimant, it wouldn't be able to complete deliberations for each case at the current pace," which now averages about six months per case.

In other news relating to the Nuclear Damage Claim Dispute Resolution Center, the group has recently set the basic amount of reparations in cases of death below the amount usual for damages suits that go before the courts. Furthermore, the ADR center sets the causal relationship between these deaths and the nuclear disaster at 50 percent in nearly every instance, and has accordingly cut the proposed compensation amount by half in case after case.

July 21, 2014(Mainichi Japan)