Amid an acute labor shortage, well-trained nurses from several Asian countries are bringing favorable changes to hospitals here.
"They gave us the power to tackle our sense of stagnation," Sayaka Fujita, a 41-year-old nurse at Sodegaura Satsukidai Hospital in Sodegaura, Chiba Prefecture, said of the Vietnamese nurses she works with.
Since 1994, the hospital has trained 10 Vietnamese nurses as part of a joint program with other hospitals. In addition to helping the hospital address its labor shortage, they had other favorable effects on its operations.