The Ho Chi Minh Acupuncture Center in Mexico is so flooded with patients that on most days the Vietnamese doctors and nurses there are run off their feet.

A patient named Hernandez, 60, has been waiting to see doctors for her liver fibrosis. She was being treated with Western medicines in hospitals after hospitals, yet the ailment did not get better. But after one month of acupuncture in the center, her body is not so swollen and she feels no nausea and can also now urinate easily.
 
Not only Hernandez, but many Mexican patients are surprised at the effectiveness of Vietnamese traditional treatment methods. The Center was earlier open for treatment of poor people only but later many VIP’s too began visiting for treatment.
 
The story began from a trip to Mexico--Vietnam’s premier acupuncturist Nguyen Tai Thu accepted the treatment of the wife of the Finance Minister, who had become paralyzed after an accident. After a few sittings at the center, she could walk again.
 
Thu’s reputation spread throughout the country and even Robert Anaya Gutierrrez, General Secretary of the Mexican Labor Party, turned out to be a regular customer at the acupuncture center. The secretary had Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia and thanks to Thu’s miracle needles, his illness was cured.

Subsequently, he has been coming regularly every month to the center for treatment of nervous tension. In 2010, Acapulco City’s Deputy Mayor got shot by a robber, resulting in pain while eating and insomnia. Once again, the Vietnamese doctor applied his miracle needles to heal the Deputy Mayor.
 
In Mexico, medical treatment is very expensive at 500 pesos per sitting. There, Korean and Chinese acupuncturists are available for 400 pesos while the Vietnamese acupuncturist takes 100 pesos per sitting, and added to this gives free treatment to the elderly and the poor.
 
The center was set up in Mexico with help of Robert Anaya Gutierrrez, General Secretary of the Mexican Labor Party. In 2000, on his trip to Vietnam, he proposed to help his country develop acupuncture methodology.

In 2001, the Ho Chi Minh Acupuncture Center in Mexico was officially opened. After one year, the Labor Party asked Vietnam to open more such centers in Mexico and in 2003 the second and third centers were opened in Mexico’s Zacatecas state along with training courses in acupuncture.
 
Dr. Ho Quang Minh, a coordinator of the project in Mexico, said Vietnam sends its good acupuncturists with five year experience to Mexico every year.

Although Vietnamese acupuncturists have to work in Mexico for one year only as per agreement between the two countries, many volunteers want to stay on, like Dr. Phuong Lan who said “Off course I miss my relatives but I feel proud when I am lauded by a patient cured by a Vietnamese acupuncturist”.
 
Thu’s acupuncture methods and his technique of supplementing anesthetics in surgery and detoxification for drug addicts has been successfully applied in Vietnam and introduced to nearly 50 countries and territories.