Meet Tassien Sindabye, Nyanza's visually-impaired physiotherapist

His work takes many forms. He has vision impairment. But yes, he is a physiotherapist. Tassien Sindabye works at Nyanza Hospital. On duty, his vision impairment is visible but what is amazing is that he wants to be defined by his work and indeed is greatly admired by patients due to his quality service. He can touch your aching body part, massage it or apply ointment onto it with his soothing and skilled hands and you get relieved. This might seem sheer miracle how a visually-impaired person can manage to carry out physiotherapy and kinesitherapy – the therapeutic treatment of disease by passive and active muscular movements – with satisfactory results, at least, going by what his patients testify. Sindabye defied stereotype to become a renowned personality in such domains. He wants people to look at his work and not his visual impairment. Married with four children, Sindabye said he gets satisfaction from treating patients with care and kindness. He recalls that he grew up wondering what the future held for him but could not imagine he would become a physiotherapist. “The blind, how can they make it?” he reminisces of those awkward moments years past when people would say of his impairment. That was in 1979 when he was in primary school at Home de la Vierge des Pauvres (HVP) Gatagara. However, as Sindabye determinedly went about pursuing a physiotherapy course, his dream became real. His areas of specialty include massages; varying from backache and muscle patients to chronic headache and facial paralysis; correction of the valgus knees also known as knock-knee, a deviation to the outside of the axis of the lower limb with projection of the knee within. He also learnt how to correct clubfoot, a congenital deformation (dysmorphic) of the foot, where the affected person moves on their upper part of the foot instead of the sole. Tassien Sindabye, a physiotherapist at Nyanza Hospital. He said he managed to acquire all these skills through content in Braille – a machine that aids the visually-impaired in reading and writing. Sindabye, who has chalked up 21 years of experience in physiotherapy, says passion is reflected in his work. He was posted to Nyanza Hospital in 1998. “I am visually-impaired but I am happy to offer good service to patients and they leave satisfied, it comforts me,” he said. “How can a patient be happy with you if you treat them with an intimidating mood?” Sindabye asks. The resident of Busasamana Sector in Nyanza District was born in 1966 in Nyaruguru District (former Nshili Commune in Gikongoro Province). What his patients say Some of the people who have had the chance to be attended to by Sindabye spoke with respect of his talent in an interview with Saturday Times. “He is a very good physiotherapist. The first time I came I could not walk straight, work or lie but now, I am getting a little better. He has this talent that enables him to treat perfectly. All patients want to be treated by him,” said Olive Uwinema, a victim of motor accident who had gone to see Sindabye for backache treatment. “He is doing his best to help me stand through redressing my leg bones,” said Etienne Ntakirende, who has trouble standing after he was hit by a wall while putting down an old house. Sindabye’s qualities go beyond treating patients. The way he interacts with colleagues at work is also inspiring and impressive. Sindabye said he was first driven by the desire to serve the community and the school he went to helped to shape his dream. The learning environment was conducive, he said. “There were also the visually-impaired from Europe, Tunisia, Kinshasa and Tanzania, who came and they shared good experiences they had with us, how they managed to study and, therefore, earned their bread and this encouraged us,” Sindabye said, adding that he wants his children to live in harmony with other people. “I teach them to embrace good moral values, to interact well with other people and work hard to develop as that’s also what I love as it brings happiness to me,” he said

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Meet Tassien Sindabye, Nyanza's visually-impaired physiotherapist