About this Bulletin
Miyagi Prefecture Mental Health and Welfare Association
Director – Hiroo Matsuoka(Department of Psychiatry, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine)
The Great East Japan Earthquake refers to a large-scale, widespread disaster that encompassed
an unprecedented magnitude 9 earthquake off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku on March 11, 2011, thelarge tsunami that occurred immediately afterward, and the strong aftershocks on April 7 of the same
year. Approximately 20,000 people died or went missing as a result, with about 60% of thesecasualties occurring in Miyagi Prefecture. Nearly the entire coastline of Miyagi was affected by thedisaster, but the extent and nature of the damage varied greatly from region to region. Even in thefield of psychiatry alone, the damage to health care and welfare systems varied greatly in quantityand quality between regions (i.e., creating a patchy pattern of differences1)), and no consistent patternof damage exists. This problem related to regional differences has made the provision of standardized,
uniform support difficult and has had a complex influence on reconstruction plans in the acute andmedium- to long-term phases.
On November 21, 2011, amidst political turmoil, a third supplementary budget was finallyapproved in the National Diet of Japan. However, given the delays associated with these recovery
and reconstruction efforts, Miyagi Prefecture had already independently established the Great East
Japan Earthquake Reconstruction Fund in early August of the same year. It was the first among thethree disaster-affected prefectures to decide upon establishing a Disaster Mental Health Care Center,named the Miyagi Disaster Mental Health Care Center (MDMHCC). A preparatory office wasestablished in November and operations commenced the following month. Nevertheless, the openingof the MDMHCC was delayed by about four months compared to the opening of the Mental HealthCare Center established after the Great Hanshin Earthquake. As in cases of the Hyogo and Niigata
Disaster Mental Health Care Centers, the parent organization of the MDMHCC is the Miyagi Mental
Health and Welfare Association. The Core Center was opened in Sendai City in December 2011.
Regional Centers were established in April of the following year in Ishinomaki and Kesennuma– twonorthern cities in Miyagi Prefecture that were severely damaged by the disaster.
Initially, the primary work of the MDMHCC was general coordination across all areas of mental
health care and welfare, human resource training and dispatchment for support purposes, publicawareness activities focused on the prevention of mental illness, counseling and visitations (intemporary disaster housing, as so on) related to disaster-associated mental illness, and training in andprovision of activity support to civilian organizations and volunteer groups, among other things.
Owing to the efforts of the many part- and full-time staff of the MDMHCC, our work has since slowly
begun to change in nature, and we hope that by reading this bulletin, you will gain a better idea of thedetails thereof. Nowadays, as survivors and disaster-affected individuals have just begun to speak of
their troubles in the past tense, and as we move into the reconstruction and revitalization of disasteraffected areas, we are wont to turn our eyes only to the brighter, more appealing aspects of theproblems that face us. However, troubles of the mind often mingle with societal and social difficulties,and can continue for 10 or even 20 years hence. In that sense, we have but taken the very first step ofa long journey toward the revitalization of mental health care and welfare, and I fervently hope thateveryone involved in our organization continues to put forth their best effort.
References
1) Hiroo Matsuoka. Disaster Psychiatry: Responses and Future Medical Care. “Living in the Present – The Great East Japan Earthquake: Advice for Reconstruction and Rebirth –” Series 4, Medical Care and Welfare (Ed. Osamu Konoike, Shigeru Kudo), Tohoku University Publishing (2013),
pp 107–120.