Impact of natural disaster combined with nuclear power plant accidents on local medical services: a case study of Minamisoma Municipal General Hospital after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Objective: To elucidate the impacts of nuclear plant accidents on neighboring medical centers, we investigated the operations of our hospital within the first 10 days of the Great East Japan Earthquake followed by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.

Methods: Data were extracted from medical records and hospital administrative records covering 11 to 20 March 2011. Factual information on the disaster was obtained from public access media.