<Begin Segment 16>

SY: And what was your job exactly?

YY: Well, I first started out just helping around the pharmacy, and then afterwards, they gave me the job, the fellow that was working there, he moved out, so -- he got another job outside so he left the camp -- so I got this, I took his job, and it was doing inventory. I would get all the prescriptions for that day, and the next day I would take it down to where I did the accounting and everything, and I'd take inventory of what we gave away and what we were gonna need and things like that.

SY: So you pretty much kind of, was there someone else above you in this pharmacy area?

YY: Well, all the people that were in the pharmacy were above me. [Laughs]

SY: How many people were that, was that? How many people in the pharmacy?

YY: I think there was about, I think there were five.

SY: And they, do you remember them? Were they all practicing pharmacists?

YY: Yeah.

SY: And they all actually just filled the prescriptions. Doctors would give you prescriptions.

YY: Right, and we would fill it. We, we made certain medicines too. We'd get different ingredients and make it. So I learned quite a bit in that hospital.

SY: So you were the only one that was kind of counting inventory?

YY: Uh-huh. I had, we had another fellow that was, went to school with, we were in the same pharmacy school, and he was there too.

SY: So what kind of drugs would you get in mainly, what kind, what kinds of things were you counting?

YY: Well, that's, I can't remember that either.

SY: What kinds of things were you treating? Do you know, remember?

YY: No. Mostly it was, the people that were getting the prescriptions were for ladies. We had a lot of ladies. And I know we made a lot of cough medicine.

SY: People coming in with coughs. Was it like, do you remember if it was like inflammatory?

YY: I don't know, but I remember they called that medicine CNTH, and they used to make that with ingredients in the hospital there, in the pharmacy. That was for their cough medicine. But most of it was all pills and stuff like that.

SY: Just, you just had to count. So do you remember the kinds of things, were there serious things that were being treated, life threatening kinds of...

YY: I'm pretty sure. They did a lot of surgery because they had a, they even had a specialist come in from outside and do surgery.

SY: So they were probably for heart conditions, that kind of thing?

YY: Well, like, well, one of the things that I remember was they, this boy had bow legs and this physician came in and straightened it out, and he was in a cast for a long time.

SY: Wow. That sounds pretty sophisticated.

YY: So there was, then they even had one autopsy, and they asked us if anybody wanted to watch it, so I went in there. [Laughs] I remember the, only thing I can remember was it was real smelly. Couldn't stand the smell.

SY: So there was a room where you could actually watch, then, the surgery room?

YY: No, we'd go in there. Oh, into the surgery? No. But this was an autopsy that they were having.

SY: So it was a separate room. Do you remember very many deaths, like people dying in the hospital?

YY: I can't remember.

SY: But there were always, was it fairly busy? Were there always, the beds being used?

YY: Right. There was always a line getting prescriptions.

SY: And how about the doctors, were they always pretty busy?

YY: They were, yeah.

SY: So when you, when a patient came in, they would be assigned a certain doctor?

YY: Certain doctor, uh-huh.

SY: Depending on what they had, what their condition was?

YY: Right.

SY: Was there a department for, like, babies being born? Or was that a separate area?

YY: That, I can't remember. But they must've had a separate area for that.

SY: So you don't remember the mothers coming in with, for checkups or that kind of thing?

YY: I can't remember anything.

SY: So did you stay back in a separate area from the rest of the hospital?

YY: Right.

SY: It was a separate room.

YY: There was a warehouse there where they brought the materials in for the hospital, and I had a little office there in that warehouse where I did my inventory and stuff.

SY: Would you say that you were one of the youngest employees there?

YY: At the hospital? Yeah, maybe so.

SY: That was actual full, you worked, what were your hours, what kind of hours did you --

YY: I think I just had regular hours.

SY: 'Cause the hospital was open all the time, all night?

YY: Yeah, there was somebody there all day, I mean all night.

SY: In the pharmacy department too?

YY: No, not in the pharmacy department.

SY: So you had regular hours.

YY: If you needed medicine that, it was real late, they would always call. Somebody would go.

SY: So most people who worked there, you were probably one of the closer, you lived fairly close to the hospital.

YY: Right.

SY: Others lived in, anywhere within...

YY: Right, they had to walk. [Laughs]

SY: 'Cause it's a distance, probably, from one end of the camp to the hospital.

YY: Right. Or sometimes the, they had an ambulance and if it was a doctor or something, I guess, he would go and get the doctor.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.