Japanese Eye Doctor in Vietnam
There is a Japanese eye doctor or an ophthalmologist who has saved 10,000 Vietnamese from losing their sight.
Tadashi Hattori (1964-), a graduate from a medical university in Kyoto, met a medical doctor from Vietnam in an academic conference held in Kyoto in 2002. The Vietnamese doctor said that there were so many Vietnamese who lost sight due to poor medical environments of the developing country in Southeast Asia. So, Hattori decided to go and help Vietnamese.
At the time Hattori had completed his professional training, having worked in various hospitals all over Japan. So, he came to dream of expanding his medical activities beyond the sea. Then he happened to meet the Vietnamese doctor. Today he says that if he had met a medical doctor form India he would have visited India; if he had encountered a medical doctor from Thailand he would have traveled to Thailand.
At first Hattori planned to finish his work in Vietnam in three months in 2002. But he eventually stayed there for three years. Today he shuttles between Japan and Vietnam in every two weeks. It is not for money at all. Hattori has purchased various types of medical equipment at his own expenses to donate them to hospitals in Vietnam. He even paid doctor's fees for some poor patients in Vietnam.
Hattori also tried to improve medical environment in Vietnam. Even the national ophthalmic hospital of Vietnam performed operations only in the morning or till the noon. Hattorti persuaded Vietnamese medical staff to change their practice which was not helpful for patients.
Anyway Hattori aroused the notice of Vietnamese so that a national TV station of Vietnam broadcast a program featuring Hattori. Now his influence can be seen in many young medical doctors in Vietnam. But Hattori thinks it still needs time to realize real improvement in the medical-services community of Vietnam.
In this way, Tadashi Hattori is providing medical practices for Vietnamese patients free of charge. He is a great unpaid physician in Vietnam, though he earned money in Japan which has also gradually come to recognize his contribution to Vietnamese people. Hattori has received some public prizes in Japan as well as in Vietnam.
Incidentally, the reason for Hattori to have entered a medical university in Kyoto decades ago was that he had once felt insulted and upset by an arrogant medical doctor who had attended his father; the doctor looked like having no respect for patients. Hattori's father died of illness under care of the foolish doctor when Tadashi Hattori was a high-school student. He wanted to be a better medical doctor so as to put such arrogant and stupid doctors to shame.
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