Covid-19 is rampant in Hokkaido and so Japan Heart is providing support to eight locations around the prefecture including the current activity facilities. I came to Sapporo, the prefecture capital, in mid-November where I worked at two elderly nursing homes and then I moved to Asahikawa City where I am providing cluster support at a third facility.
As reported in the news, the JSDF has been dispatched to Asahikawa. This is one of the largest incidents of cluster support that the Japanese government has provided so far, and I can feel the struggle. The facility where the cluster occurred is mentally exhausted, just as in the event of a natural disaster. We, the Japan Heart Nurses, are active in an area called the Red Zone, where clusters are occurring.
There are many questions about what it takes to support a cluster as a nurse. The ability to protect yourself from infection, the ability to look after patients, being able to adapt in the field to become useful ASAP, being able to think about infection control while being useful. You have to know what to tell and to whom to improve infection control and you have to be able to actively communicate and share information with countermeasures headquarters consisting of health centres and specialists. The ability to maintain mental and physical strength while experiencing patients’ deaths. There are too many to count.
The Japan Heart nurses constantly got opportunities to provide support during the most difficult times for the hospitals and nursing facilities where clusters are occurring, and so the abilities mentioned earlier have been growing steadily in us over the last month, myself included. I think these abilities have been honed as we enter the extraordinary field of cluster generation.
It might not be relevant to cluster support, but I personally feel that no matter where I go:
“I’m glad I came here”
That’s what I think. I’m glad. This is not because I got thanked for coming or saving them. While working with various nurses, doctors and caregivers, I am learning a lot from how they think and support them. I continue to ask myself: What can I do today? What can I learn today?
“Someday, this experience will nourish me”
With that in mind, Japan Heart will continue to fight in Hokkaido today although it is difficult in every place where clusters have occurred.
Japan Heart nurse, Reina Fukuda