My NORVIC Experience

Kenichi Tanaka
Chief Researcher (Education)
Social Development Unit
Mohri, Architect & Associates,
INC.
Tokyo, Japan

I was in Kathmandu, Nepal. It happened by suddenly. I had sharp pain in my chest and I found difficult to breathe while playing golf in the morning on 17th June 2005. I was taken to the club house. I felt very cold. I couldn't respond, because something had happened to my heart. After 20 minutes, an ambulance along with a doctor come from NORVIC. I felt lucky to hear that the doctor was from NORVIC, since I had heard the reputation of the Norvic several times from the Japanese community in Kathmandu. It took about 20 minutes to get the NORVIC though it usually takes about 45minutes from the golf course to reach NORVIC.

The doctor explained to me about my hearts ailment and I took the doctor's advice to have an urgent angiography procedure. A small pipe was then inserted from my right thigh and I could even see a blood vessel through a monitor at the Cathlab. The monitor showed that a blood vessel going into my heart was clogged and that there was no blood circulation. I saw young doctors and nurses concentrating on doing something to save me. And then, it was not so long that I heard that my doctor was saying "Congratulations" to me. I think that it was 9:30 am. So it had been about 3 hours since I felt pain in my heart on the No. 13 hole at the golf course. Strangely enough, I didn't lose consciousness. I remember all the things that happened from the golf course to the Cathlab of NORVIC. Then I was sent to CCU and spent 10 days there.

During the 10 days, I had good opportunity to see NORVIC functioning. I was amazed to see the hospital very clean, compared with other hospitals in Kathmandu. This was possible because the hospital allocated enough and well trained workers to keep it clean. Moreover, I found that I was very lucky to have the services of doctor (Dr. Rawat) on that day.

Then I was sent back to Japan. I went to a hospital at Akihabara in Tokyo for reexamination on my heart condition. I went though a catheter procedure to have the stent point checked again.
They were very happy with the treatment I got in Nepal. At the time or reexamination at a hospital in Japan, my doctor was amazed that Dr. Rawat could do everything for me in Nepal such as stenting.
My doctor (he went to USA recently) was amazed the way they selected the medicine for me. Now even my doctor follows the same medication.

My Japanese doctor gave an assurance that I was able to restart to work at foreign countries such as Nepal. Last year, I went to Nepal, Bangladesh to evaluate basic and primary education projects that were technically supported by the Japanese government. This year, I went to Mali in Africa and Indonesia to prepare projects that would be supported by the Japanese government.

The photo below shows me in Nepal, in August 2006. I am having interview with the mothers of children who never went to schools in order to have evaluation of a non-formal education project supported by the Japanese government.