Nonagenarian painter still fights for Minamata patients

Painter, 91, still fights for Minamata patients
07/20/2007, BY AYAKO TSUKIDATE, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

• http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200707200121.html

…Kikue Wakatsuki, moved by the plight of the mercury-poisoning victims, decided to bill her customers specifically for “fund-raising,” saying their “donations” would be sent to help the patients in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture. No one complained.

Wakatsuki retired from the bar called Noa Noa long ago. She is now 91 years old and uses a wheelchair. But she continues to help Minamata disease victims.

Last month, Wakatsuki, who is also a painter, held her first private art exhibition in her hometown of Niigata, bringing her together with mercury-poisoning victims in the city for the first time….

Sanji Watanabe, 91, a Japanese folk singer who is also a victim of industrial mercury poisoning, sang in front of Wakatsuki.

Many of Wakatsuki’s fans, including former patrons of her bar in Shinjuku, showed up and danced to the music….

Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome first discovered in 1956. It is caused by consumption of marine products tainted with methyl mercury discharged from a Chisso Corp. plant into Minamata Bay. Although certified Minamata disease patients are entitled to payments for medical treatment, the standards for certification are rigid, and many sufferers have been left out.
…
Hideto Hatano… is also a key figure in managing the Niigata Eya art gallery, and he said he remembered hearing about Noa Noa’s manager who continued to support Minamata disease victims. When Hatano learned that Watatsuki had never held a private showing in her hometown, he invited her–and her paintings–to Niigata. [...]

See also
A Case Study of a Documentary Portrait (the article discusses the impact of the Eugene Smith photo on the family under a discussion of ethics in photography)

• on the Wayback machine, http://tinyurl.com/2yju8u, originally retrieved Aug 7, 2001 from www.nyip.com/tips/minamata0201.html

Editor’s Note: If you wish to view the photograph discussed in this article, it is still viewable online at www.masters-of-photography.com. Click on Smith, then click through the slides to the last one, which is “Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath.”

Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thursday, Sept. 12, 2004 THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF MINAMATA DISEASE Exploring a cautionary tale By STEPHEN HESSE

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Site Search Tags: nonagenarian, Minamata, artist, photograph, environmental+health, mercury, Japan

How to start — Karen G in Vancouver

Actually aging to live in a real world.

Karen G left this comment at

• Virtual aging for living in a real world

which I think is worth moving up for more attention. I had always considered Vancouver to be an ideal place in which to grow older because of the public transportation, the flowers, even climate, nice citizens, culturally diverse, good accessible healthcare, etc.

Her question is complex and most of the best advice will need to be suited to her and her aunt’s individual situation. But her question is relevant to all of us. Karen’s first step was so important, empathy or putting herself in her aunt’s place. Now I hope we can come up with other ideas.

I am looking after my aunt whom is coming up to 90 years old Christmas Day. I am hoping that someone out there has some ideas, she is a double amputee, failing eyesight and hearing, etc. I have purchased a wheelchair accessible van so I can at least get her out of the house for a few hours, but the van keeps breaking down. I don’t have alot of money, so I am trying to find things for her to do, so she isn’t sitting in her wheelchair all day and night. The story is a lot deeper problems though. I guess I am pleading for some ideas. If there is anyone out there that would like to talk to me more about this problem I would love to hear from you. You don’t realize how hard it is for the elderly when they have to rely on you even to take them to the bathroom, until you have to take care of them day and night. I really hope some responds to this. I live in Vancouver Canada. Thank you in advance.

Karen.

Off the top of my head, because it is past my bedtime, consider contacting the university. There may be students (or even entire programs) who could try their ideas for improving transportation or modifying wheelchairs. Maybe they have a program similar to UMass-Amherst where they can match graduate students needing housing with people needing assistance. (I’m thinking you could use the assistance with house or vehicle modifications or even with outings. ) There may even be a wheelchair users group at the university or city.
vuee

Virtual aging for living in a real world

When you visit the senior center is an attempt to raise awareness by the younger or able-bodied person [especially those in power] to see what older people in Bethel have to deal with at their senior center. The images are hosted by a friend at Visit Bethel Alaska’s Eddie Hoffman Senior Center.

There are suggestions there for obscuring vision or approximating a wheelchair on gravel, etc. that anyone can do to get a feeling for whether a building or service is either dangerous (fire exits, poor seating and lighting) or inadequate for other people. Some other checklists [see categories of postings] exist for assistive living facilities, but few if any for regular community facilities.

Another way to empathize came from finding a type of Internet search tool, http://www.answerbus.com/, which allows human type questions such as How to buy furniture appropriate for elderly people? The answer led to

Senior Services Transportation

The photo is of Bethel’s senior bus. The bus makes rounds on a set schedule, but the schedule is infrequently posted on the bulletin board. The first step is at the level of the person’s knees. Note also the narrow doorway, the grab bars are inside, and the lack of assistance.

…Santa Fe Ride provides around-the-clock, curb-to-curb transportation for residents with disabilities and eligible seniors. It logs 150 to 200 trips a day, Granillo said.

Changes will include a telephone-reservation system and a service that lets customers schedule recurring trips up to two weeks in advance. Also, for the first time, city employees will drive customers between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Previously, the city contracted with Capital City Cab to transport all its clients to grocery stores, the doctor, friends’ houses and elsewhere in the city. The cab service still will transport Santa Fe Ride customers on weekends and from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Monday through Friday. …

One-way trips for riders holding an Americans With Disabilities Act card — issued by the city transit division — will still cost $2. Seniors with a “ride card” will continue to pay $5 per one-way trip. “I don’t see Santa Fe Ride fares going up,” Granillo said. The city has nine vans for the program, eight of them with raised roofs and mechanical lifts to accommodate wheelchair-bound customers, she said. The ninth vehicle is a minivan equipped with a ramp but not a mechanical lift. In some cases, Granillo said, seniors prefer the minivan because it is lower to the ground and easier to climb into and out of. If the minivans prove durable enough, the city might buy more, Granillo said….

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/45473.html

2004- Elderly in Florida at risk in every hurricane season

• http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20040822/ai_n11475506#

Fran Marscher Christian Science Monitor, Aug 22, 2004

HILTON HEAD, S.C. — Hurricane Charley demonstrated last weekend why some of the nation’s most vulnerable folk — the ill, the disabled, and the frail elderly — should think twice before taking up residence in the most dangerous parts of the hurricane-prone coastal regions. For those most at risk, public policymakers ought to discourage or prohibit development on the riskiest lands.

Last Saturday morning, rescue workers found a stunned and bewildered elderly woman alone in a smashed cinder-block condominium in a retirement community in one of the hard-hit areas of southwest Florida. Could she have evacuated? Did she understand ahead of time – - and in time — the threat to her life? Could she have packed her most precious belongings and driven herself through heavy traffic out of harm’s way to a safe place to spend the night? Now that her retirement home is wrecked beyond livability, where will she go?
….

Along with the responsibility of individuals for their own choices, elected officials have responsibilities for planning and zoning restrictions in the public interest. To often, they fan the fires of growth instead of looking after those unable to help themselves.

Assisted-living facilities have sprung up almost as fast as tennis courts near the nation’s beaches. By definition, thousands of their residents are incapable of evacuating themselves when a hurricane whirls offshore and aims landward. Their problems range from aches, pains and stiffness, to dependence on wheelchairs and bottled oxygen. In short, they need others to help them make it through every day. They should not be subjected either to the stress of hurricane evacuations or to the havoc of hurricane impact.
….

Living quarters for folk who are fragile, whether because of illness or age, should be sited appropriately — miles inland if necessary — certainly not on land likely to be flooded or subject to a hurricane’s highest winds. Further, all buildings anywhere in the coastal zones — but especially those housing the ill and the disabled, and those unable to live on their own — should be required to be built or retrofitted to withstand hurricane-force winds.

Where we call ourselves civilized, policymakers are obligated to protect those who cannot protect themselves.