The Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the government must fully reimburse the medical costs paid by survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings who live abroad as it does with survivors living in Japan. The 5-0 ruling by the top court's Third Petit Bench, which ends the government's discriminatory treatment of A-bomb survivors living abroad, is reasonable and welcome. The government should promptly take necessary steps to implement the ruling because not much time is left for A-bomb survivors.
The lawsuit was filed in 2011 by Lee Hong-hyun, a 69-year-old South Korean man who was exposed to radiation in Hiroshima while he was in his mother's womb, and the families of two other South Korean male survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombing who died in 2010 and 2011. Lee suffered from a kidney disease and had a transplant in 1990. The plaintiffs went to court after the Osaka Prefectural Government had turned down their request for reimbursement of medical costs the three survivors paid in South Korea.
Although the Atomic Bomb Survivors' Relief Law provides for full reimbursement of the medical costs paid by A-bomb survivors and does not limit the help to residents of Japan, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has excluded those living overseas from reimbursement on the grounds that it is difficult to scrutinize the validity of medical treatment received abroad and to verify the payments.