**-Ignored conflicts at the National Hansen's Disease Sanatorium Residents' Council and the Residents' Committee**

When I came here, there was the Residents' Committee, and in the previous year a national organization was formed called the National Hansen's Disease Patients' Council (now called the National Hansen's Disease Sanatorium Residents' Council). Among their activities, including at the Ōshima Residents' Committee, they sought the revision or abolishment of the Hansen's Disease Prevention Law. Our freedom was restricted, we were put to forced labor, and the head of the sanatorium had the power to discipline and detain us through extraterritoriality.

He could detain people who did something wrong to punish them and had the right to reduce meal rations. There was a sense of opposition to these social inconsistencies. These organizations were very active when I arrived. There were often labor strikes and hunger strikes.

22) I had very slipshod feelings at that time and turned my back, thinking "Isn't it too late to be doing this?" That is why I thought, looking at it objectively, having no freedom was bitter and placed a large weight on my shoulders, but since my daily life involved letting the cards fall where they may, I did not trouble myself over it much.

**3) The conflicts of the National Hansen's Disease Council ended in vain, but things improved gradually in unseen ways**

### **-Despite the hunger strikes and labor strikes, the Hansen's Disease Prevention Law conflict ended in vain and the law continued until 1996**

Listener: Did anything get better because the others had gone on strike?

Yamamoto: Nothing got extremely better. Until the 1980s, there was nothing that suddenly got better one day or improved at a particular time. It happened vaguely and gradually.

There were organizing activities and opposition activities that drove facility operations into an untenable situation, such as hunger strikes and labor strikes, but in the end, they cannot be said to have changed anything. This is because at the conclusion of the conflict over the law, they were not able to deal a blow to the national government. Ultimately, the law remained in place until 1996. Since the conflict with its large goal ended in vain, I feel the people at its forefront must have felt quite despondent by that point.

#### **-Things got invisibly better a little at a time**

At any rate, when I say things changed, it was a tiny bit at a time in invisible ways. For example, among medical issues, things like a significant bump in the health care budget, a sudden jump in the number of medical staff, or a groundbreaking reform in the new year did not occur at the Hansen's disease sanatorium.

Since the residents, who had until then meekly been doing what they were told to, began to use shows of force during the prevention law conflict, the government thought, "We had better think about this situation a little," and implemented improvements a little bit at a time. Even though, practically speaking, the conflict ended in vain, the government did raise the working wage slightly, increase medical expenditures, and increase the number of workers by one or two people. I feel that the government had an inflated view of these small changes and felt very self-satisfied about them. As these built up a little at a time, if I look back over a long period of time of 15 years, instead of 5 or 10, I can say things got better. This is the extent of the improvement we are talking about.
