Despite Severe Staff Shortage, After Quake, Wajima City Facility for Disabled Reopens

From FNN Online via Tenki

March 11 2024

Wajima City, Ishikawa Pref – While Wajima City is facing a staff shortage problem, facilities used by people with disabilities have reopened on March 11th.

The staff say: “We decided to reopen this place from today, working hard with the staff and users here so that everyone can come and laugh with each other as soon as possible and return to the situation before the earthquake. With the hope of restoring lifelines, we decided to resume operations in order to create a place for users who had evacuated from the earthquake inside and outside the city.”

However, the 25 staff members before the earthquake were forced to evacuate outside the city, and now there are only 8 staff members. Care worker Miharu Fujisawa said:

“Everyone (staff members were also affected by the disaster) has no home. There are many people whose homes have already been destroyed. They want to live and work in Wajima, but they can’t. I wonder if the staff will be there when the users come back. As far as whether we can follow up, we still haven’t decided exactly what we should do.”

It is clear that without these facilities, some people will not be able to return to their daily lives. However, if the number of users increases in the future, there will be no shortage of staff. Fujisawa continued: 

“There are many places where it is difficult to manage the facilities themselves, so we ask employees of welfare facilities in the same Wajima to work here temporarily.”

The reality is that the efforts of the facilities alone cannot do anything about it.