Hello, everyone. My name is MAEJIMA Hiroshi. I am working with the Brothers of St John of God as a Co-worker of the Korean Province in the Japanese Delegation. We are two Co-workers in Japan: I work at the Delegation Secretariat, the other Co-worker is the Director of the St. John of God’s Centre, a social welfare provider for the needy in the Japanese district.

The St. John`s Centre has mainly been helping mentally impaired persons, including schizophrenia patients until now. I know that St. John of God did the same in his hospital in Granada. However, more recently, potential guests have also been coming here for a variety of other reasons, too. One such person who came to us recently was a man who had just been released from prison. If we are to accept people like this, we must have the necessary experience or special knowhow to be able to help them, because they are often being shunned by many other care facilities in Japan.

In this regard, I would like to recount something that recently happened in our Centre.

I cannot go into details because I am duty-bound to protect the patient confidentiality. But when a similar case to this arose last year, we put the following question at our Centre’s meeting: “What would John of God have done in this case?” Our young co-worker said, "I think that he would have helped the man in need of it." And he added, "We have to acquire the necessary know-how from other facilities that have experience in this area. Learning is difficult, so we must set great store by experience," and “whatever the co-workers and other people learn can subsequently be handed on and taught to others in other facilities.” Another veteran co-worker, who has been with us for ages in our Centre, said, "There is a first time for everything," and "the important thing is to save the people in need of our support." Those words uttered by that veteran co-worker brought the meeting to an end. And we took that pacient in.

So the motto, "Do what St. John of God would do" is, in my opinion, a valuable resource for us, as this episode I have just described shows us.