An oral history of nurses who cared for the atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima from August 1945 to the end of that year

Abstract

At 8:15 A.M. on 6 August 1945, the first Atomic Bomb was deployed against the city of Hiroshima in Japan. The city of Hiroshima was largely destroyed by this action, and huge numbers of its people became A-Bomb Victims (ABVs). Then, relief parties began medical treatment for the victims immediately. There were many nurses who attended the Hiroshima relief. The purposes of this study was to describe the senior nurses’ experiences of the relief for the ABVs in Hiroshima, and to describe the senior nurses’ lives during and after their experience in the relief of Hiroshima. This study used oral history (OH) as its methodology, and specifically an idiographic approach and focused on the informants’ inner world, such as how they thought, felt, and acted during the events which happened at Hiroshima. The informants in this study were seventeen senior nurses who had the experience of caring for the Hibakusya in 1945. Data was gathered by interviewing by this researcher and from the beginning, interviews were conducted as a non-structured interview. The analysis used a sequential analysis, specifically narrative analysis. There were too many seriously wounded ABVs for relief workers to cope with and they did not have enough medication for all ABVs. Despite this informants tried to provide good nursing care for ABVs through much hard work, and yet most of ABVs died of what was to come to be known as radiation sickness. Hiroshima City was a naval and military city, therefore the impact of the announcement of the surrender of Japan to the Allied Forces as immense. Along with this humbling, the city was enveloped in one of its frequent and significant weather events, named the Makurazaki Typhoon, where one of the hospitals was caught up in a mudslide. Although the Hiroshima relief turned out to be a short period in the long lives of these senior nurses, its events and traumas affected them throughout it. Firstly, because Hiroshima had been contaminated by extremely strong radiation, the informants themselves became ABVs. The terror of A-Bomb radiation is that even though one recovers, this recovery is never complete and many experienced several returns of illnesses. They also experienced social stigma and marriage discrimination because they known to be ABV and rumours circulated that suggested women who were ABVs would have abnormal babies. Also has there i was censorship through a press code and by the ABVs themselves, the secrecy compounded the stigma and discrimination against all ABVs. During the occupation the Japanese government was concerned to not express conflict with the Allied Forces and these nurses who provided care for victims were in turn victimised for the roles that they played. Support for ABVs has only recently become more open and less shameful for families to acknowledge the work undertaken by women such as these. All the informants agreed that the A-Bomb relief had been a precious or good experience despite their on-going suffering and insecurities for future generations of their families. They had learnt so much through their various, difficult experiences which provided them with a strong sense of how the circumstances had enriched their lives more than they had caused them suffering. They believed that nursing in such an extreme episode had meant that they understood what other victims went through, they were more empathic and tolerant as well as understanding what caring for others could provide for nurses — it affected how they thought of themselves as nurses for the remainder of their lives.