Hanoi (VNA) - Iizuka Kazuhiro, a physical therapist born and raised in thesouthern Japanese coastal prefecture of Shizuoka, has moved to Vietnam’s centralprovince of Thanh Hoa to work as a volunteer.

Having worked at the Stroke Centre at NishijimaHospital in Shizuoka Prefecture for seven years, Kazuhiro came toVietnam in March 2017 to volunteer at the Thanh Hoa Nursing - RehabilitationCentral Hospital through a volunteer programme run by the JapaneseInternational Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Working at the Department of Clinical -Rehabilitation, the 29-year-old is helping patients with brain injuries torestore their functional ability.

Kazuhiro first became interested in workingoverseas during a trip to Cambodia, where he saw the first-aid methods used inroad accidents there - and saw many people with disabilities living on thestreets.

“I wanted to know more about the medical sectorsand rehabilitation methods in developing countries,” he said.

Kazuhiro’s daily job involves instructingpatients with physical exercises to recover their functional ability and dailyliving activities, and tracking their improvement.

As most Vietnamese use motorbikes, the number ofpatients suffering from paralysis as the result of brain injuries from roadaccidents in Vietnam is relatively higher than in Japan, he said.

There is a big difference in the rehabilitationprocesses of the two countries, he added.

“Rehabilitation methods in Vietnam are limitedto muscle massaging and joint exercises,” he said. “A lot of patients are notable to return to work, and have to return to the hospital several times forfurther treatment,” he said.

“In Japan we aim to help patients take care ofthemselves and get back to a normal life,” he said.


Language is the biggest obstaclefor Kazuhiro as he can speak only a little Vietnamese. “Work neverexhausts me, but sometimes I feel helpless as I can’t explain to my patientsexactly what I want them to do,” he said.

But his patients understand him fine. Trinh ThuHang, 13, who suffers from hemiplegia after a road accident a month ago, saidIizuka was “very friendly and thoughtful”. (Hemiplegia is a condition thataffects one side of the body. It is caused by injury to parts of the brain thatcontrol movements of the limbs, trunk, face).

“He instructed me carefully with the exercises,and never lost his patience,” she said.

Kazuhiro’s presence also helps to reducepressure on the rehabilitation department, whose patients range from 20 to 40but has only two nurses and no physical therapist.

He introduced the department to the BrunnstromApproach which sets out a sequence of stages of recovery from hemiplegia aftera stroke, and the Barthel scale, which is a scale used to measure performancein activities of daily living. 

“We rate patients’ improvements based on thosescales,” said Cao Thi Hien, a department nurse. “They help us evaluate theirlevels of recovery in a more precise manner. From this, we can set clearerexercise objectives and plans for them.”

Apart from modern equipment, lying around therehabilitation room are simple hand-exercise tools, some of them madeby Kazuhiro from everyday items such as bottle caps, coat hangers andcarton boxes.

He first attempted to make the tools after hewas overcharged by providers of medical equipment.

“They charged me 1-2 million VND (44-88 USD) forsimple hand-exercise equipment,” he said. “So I tried to make a simplifiedversion of it, which cost only 100,000 VND,” he said.

Tong Van Truyen, an orthopaedic technician, saidthe tools were “actually very practical and creative.”

“They received positive feedback from severalpatients,” he said.

As a volunteer, Kazuhiro stays at a staffaccommodation block inside the hospital. Outside work, he likes hanging outwith his co-workers, who invite him to dinner a lot, he said.

“I even had a beer with my patients once,” hesaid.

The Japanese volunteer has no plans when hisvolunteer period ends in March next year, but working overseas is still on hiswish-list.

“If that’s not possible, I would like to returnto work at Nishijima Hospital to share what I have learned in Vietnam,” hesaid.-VNA