More compensation demanded from TEPCO

November 2,  2012 

Dialysis patients that evacuated after tsunami demand compensation from TEPCO ***

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20121102p2a00m0na012000c.html 

FUKUSHIMA -- A group of dialysis patients have filed a damage claim with Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, demanding that the utility compensate them for their evacuation outside Fukushima Prefecture to receive treatment after the nuclear disaster.

Representatives from the Fukushima branch of the Japan Association of Kidney Disease Patients (JAKDP) handed a claim to officials at TEPCO's Fukushima community support office on Nov. 1. "TEPCO should pay damage reparations to patients regardless of whether they were in evacuation areas or not," stated the written claim.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, many dialysis patients were forced to evacuate to areas outside Fukushima Prefecture because they were not able to receive artificial dialysis treatment at their hospitals, even though they were living in areas outside nuclear evacuation zones.

Many dialysis patients -- who suffer deteriorated kidney functions -- need to receive artificial dialysis treatment about once every two days, with their life being threatened otherwise.

In Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, hospitals were closed after many nurses evacuated from the city, leaving some 600 dialysis patients unable to continue to receive treatment and forcing them to relocate to Tokyo and other areas en masse.

Because the city of Iwaki was not designated as an evacuation zone, the current reparation scheme defines such patients as "voluntary evacuees," who are eligible for only 80,000 yen each in compensation, according to the government's Dispute Reconciliation Committee for Nuclear Damage Compensation.

"It's not an amount that a patient whose life was put in danger can ever accept," said the chairman of JAKDP's Fukushima branch.

He said dialysis patients who did not evacuate also received reduced treatment.