Densho Digital Archive - Shigeki Sugiyama Interview (denshovh-sshigeki-01-0010)

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RP: What was your... since you worked in the hospital as an orderly, you know, day to day, what was your perspective on the level of medical care, the adequacy of the staff and supplies? Was it a well-supplied hospital?

SS: I think as far as I could tell, I mean, for the times, when you consider we didn't have the modern, today's things. So thinking back there's a shortage I mentioned of things like razor blades, of course, medication... sulfa was the top of line at that time, we had no problem getting it, anesthetics, and in terms of intravenous solutions and so forth. I don't recall that any nurse or doctor saying, "Well, we can't get it." I remember at Topaz when penicillin first came out, this was in '44, I recall the hospital getting its first supply of penicillin. And sulfa, of course, there's the standard in the Army at that World War II, you also carried sulfa tablets. No, I know there's a person... I've heard one person who is presently a professional who alludes to the fact that the medical care was deliberately withheld or inadequate. But the treatment, well, the doctors in Manzanar, I think they were all Nisei or Japanese Americans, same way in Topaz. Perhaps, you know, they weren't experienced in many years of experience or anything else, but for what at that time, I think medical care was pretty standard.

Matter of fact after I left camp, let's see, it was in 1945 when I was in Ann Arbor, I was working in the residence hall, the east quadrangle, and during the Christmas break, year end break, I didn't have a job, didn't have a place to eat, and so I went up to the University of Michigan Hospital and got a job there as an orderly for two weeks. They kept saying, "Well, it's only two weeks, by the time you buy your uniform and stuff," I said, well, I just want... and I worked there for two weeks as an orderly and as far as I could tell, the treatment we gave in camp, of course we didn't have a facility of a university hospital, but as far as the ward was concerned, there was no difference. The facilities were permanent, it's easier but so that's my perspective on it but this woman that's a professional is saying that she was born in camp and said that her mother went through extreme labor when she was... and they didn't give her an anesthetic, and I'm thinking, I don't know of anyone ever giving anesthetic for birth, yet, she has it in her mind that that's her impression of what camp was like.

RP: Working at the hospital gave you a direction and kind of focus for your life at that time.

SS: Yeah, that's what convinced me to go onto medicine, except I got sidetracked a bit. Oh, one of the things at (Manzanar) hospital, it was in '43, one of the sentries, the guards, Army, was fooling around with his gun, revolver or whatnot, I don't know, it must have been a revolver, 'cause an automatic wouldn't do it, but somehow or other he dropped it or something and it went off and he shot himself accidentally. And I recall I was there when they brought him up, you know, in a stretcher, and so rather than waiting they had brought him directly to the ward but the doctor stopped them and laid him out on the stretcher on the corridor and the doctors, the Nisei doctors tried to revive him but it was too late. I recall they're trying to restart and give him adrenaline and this and that but because apparently the wound was too severe, and he died right there on the ward, not on the ward, in the hall there while our doctors were trying to resuscitate him.

[Interruption]

RP: What did your parents do in Manzanar?

SS: Well, my mother didn't do anything, my father worked in the carpentry shop. So it gave him a chance to build stools and tables and stuff for our barracks and so forth.