Typhoon No.15 and home oxygen therapy in Tateyama city, Chiba

Abstract

Typhoon No.15, called Faxai, hit Chiba Prefecture, caused devastating damage, and the Ministry of Japan designated it as an extremely severe disaster. Many patients who received home oxygen therapy (HOT) had difficulty in getting proper treatment. Because unusable of home oxygen concentrators due to power failure and telephone line distribution, the patient was not able to implement an emergency plan such as getting in touch with home oxygen supplier for oxygen tanks. We collected oxygen tanks in our hospital as much as possible from home oxygen suppliers and provided the patients with information about oxygen tanks through the city government emergency radio. Based on the previous disaster experiences in Japan, it has been pointed out that disaster response to patients who receive HOT therapy depends mainly on home oxygen suppliers. A new disaster manual for HOT therapy that focus on the cooperation system in the government, hospitals and home oxygen suppliers need to be made.