気ままなリライト２０

The sound of silence in singing sand dunes is ringing loud

ごみ漂着「鳴き砂」ピンチ

Singing sand dunes have been losing their voice on the sea coasts across the country as deforestation and oceanic pollution are making it difficult for singing sand-curious tourists to elicit a sound effect from the sand with a high quartz content by dragging their feet through the sand. The loss of the sand squeaking when stepped on is speaking loud about how much the natural environment around sand dunes have changed and how far marine pollution has outpaced marine conservation efforts. With an enormous amount of international garbage washed ashore on the coasts of Japan, rampant invasions into one of the natural wonders Japan is proud of are more likely to silence the singing voice.
 
In many sand dunes on the coast where once the sound emission caused by walking on the sand attracted tourists as natural attractions, the sound is getting less audible as more and more dust or contaminants are coming in through the gap between quartz grains in the sand, leading to reducing the sound-generating friction between the grains. Over ten out of more than 40 beaches across the country where the sand squeaked loudly are stopping producing the sound heard. Many reports coming from a number of beaches are indicating that a silent protest is going on in the sand to pursue a purer stage of musical accompaniments performed with visitors.
 
The sound of silence in the sand dune has been ringing loud as a warning sign for local people boasting about the sand geologically-unique to the local areas. The sense of crisis among local residents has motivated them to organize and mount a series of coast-sweeping campaigns to recover the lost sound despite an overwhelming amount of garbage washed ashore from other countries including China, South Korea and Russia. The international garbage collected on the coast accounts for 80 % at a maximum in volunteer cleanup activities organized by a local neighborhood group in Kyotango City, Kyoto Prefecture where Kotohiki Beach is famous for its singing sand designated a Natural Monument of Japan. A town official says, “We need to do what it takes to protect the marine ecosystem before the breakdown of plastic waste to microplastics allows invisible impurities to seep through the ecologically-valuable sand.”
 
The environmental mission of conserving the singing sand as nationally-designated natural monuments is too tall an order for local municipalities and local communities due to an unstoppable invasion by garbage and limited labor resources of local coast sweepers. A growing aging population is forcing local communities to scale down their cleaning capabilities. That is dampening local residents’ enthusiasm about conserving Kotogahama Beach in Oda City, Shimane Prefecture as a tourist attraction known as the filming location for a movie based on a story called Sand Chronicles. Oda city also is being overwhelmed by the magnitude of garbage washed ashore to be dealt with when purifying the singing sand with a sand-filtering machine to remove contaminated particles from the sand, especially in winter with raging waves beckoning a lot of garbage into the shore.

The improvement in the status of paramedics is expanding the coverage of their life-saving activities

救急救命士、活動広がる

The scope of emergency life-saving technicians’ role has been expanding not only as pre-hospital emergency medical service providers in the chain of survival, but also as medical professionals in hospital and health care settings since the medically-trained ambulance crew were officially allowed to do medical acts for the first time in Japan in 1992. The life-saving skills of rescuers certified by the government as emergency life-saving technicians has played a critical role in improving the survival rate when they are working in a transporting ambulance or in a clinic.
 
Among the witnesses to the transition from physician-controlled emergency medicine to paramedic-aided emergency medicine is Yasuhiro Yamamoto, a specialist in emergency medicine, director of Tokyo Hikifune Hospital in Sumida Ward, Tokyo. In order to speed up a rulemaking process in the Diet to expand the role of ambulance crew as emergency medical technicians, the Japanese version of paramedics, he demonstrated how to rescue with life-saving equipment in front of Diet lawmakers. After a breakthrough came as the legislation defining trained ambulance crew as medical service providers in 1992, the dawn of a new beginning put huge pressure on the first batch of candidates to establish themselves as newly-minted paramedics. Their desperate passion made a strong impression on Yamamoto as an emergency medical trainer at that time. With ambulance crew members selected from fire departments across the country, their do-or-die mentality took over in training sessions necessary to qualify as paramedics.
 
It has taken more time and patience to sow seeds in the field plowed by law as the reality paramedics were remained unchanged even after the enforcement of the legislation designed to permit nationally-certified emergency life-saving technicians to carry out emergency medical performances. The first batch of certified paramedics was forced to provide fundamental basic medical care in a very limited way in a transporting ambulance as physicians retained ultimate authority in deciding which emergency medical treatment is administered by paramedics. With the improvement in quality of paramedic education and training to offer aspirant ambulance crew an insight into the medical conditions of persons in need of rescue, the life-saving acuity of highly-trained paramedics is being treated as an indispensable asset to local rescue squads in fire departments across the country. The public awareness of how capable paramedics are of performing a various range of medical procedures is spreading, along with the credit paramedics have deserved for their life-saving efforts.
 
The compatibility of paramedics with physicians is playing a part in increasing the awareness of the true value of paramedics in the medical community without room for underestimation about paramedics. Paramedics are collaborating with a group of hospital doctors to keep the quality of paramedics’ performance high through medical control systems set up by medical oversight committees across the country. The medical control system is enabling a group of physicians in each local medical oversight committee to evaluate paramedics’ life-saving skills without bias against paramedics. Each case coped with by a paramedic is checked how suitable the procedure has been to improve the odds on a sufferer staying alive and how effectively the high-risk procedure has been done in accord with medical protocols or through on-line medical orders from hospital doctors.
 
With paramedical staff in much demand and increasing opportunities to be a nationally-registered paramedic available to college students and students in specialist-training schools, many certified paramedics have been playing a paramedical role in hospitals. Thanks to last year’s amendment to the law concerning paramedics, the domain of a paramedic was expanded from the care management only in a transporting ambulance to the care management covering all the way to take each case up to a hospital bed. That has made paramedic certificates magnetize young people to pursue their medical careers as paramedical staff members in hospitals and health care agencies.