A hospital in Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, inside the zone where people have been instructed to stay indoors, more than half the hospital’s staff have evacuated.  But, about 170 inpatients are still at the hospital.

“We’re reaching the limits of our ability to provide treatment,” hospital director Yukio Kanazawa said. Only a small number of hospital staff stayed behind to care for the patients.

Ohmachi Hospital staff is now less than 40%.  The hospital is rationing meals for patients, two meals a day.

Doctors who normally work at Tono Hospital, cannot get there because of a fuel shortage.

Ninohe Hospital has run out of supplies, including heating fuel.  “It’s as if some enemy is starving us out,” a hospital official said.

Kunihiro Mashiko, chief of the emergency treatment center of Nippon Medical School Chiba Hokusoh Hospital says “Lives that were saved once may be lost because of the shortage of both doctors and medicine.”

At Ishinomaki Hospital, tap water, electricity and gas have been cut off.  Requests for help with about 120 inpatients were declined.