Every morning, the hallway in front of the Oncology Ward at the Da Nang General Hospital is enlivened with fun chats and laughter amongst a group of cancer patients of different ages who are being treated here.

Ms Nhu (1st, right) and her trainees at the free yoga therapy class

All of them are special trainees joining in a volunteer yoga class run by 25-year-old trainer Doan Thi Quynh Nhu from Thanh Khe District.

The free-of-charge class generally lasts for an hour, ending at around 7.30am, 3 days every week - Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays - before the kind-hearted instructor rushed to her office at 8.00am.

Ms Nhu is a white-collar worker during the day and a yoga instructor at some local gym centres in the evening.

She said her volunteer yoga class aims at helping hospital-bound cancer patients to keep strong both physically, lifting spirits, and giving hope to conquer their life-threatening disease. 

In fact, many cancer patients are bed-ridden both day and night, and they suffer horrible pain all the time; so, they find it very hard to do any physical exercises.

“They are in pain and their bodies are very weak. That’s why I teach them yoga therapy, with basic exercises of breathing and light moves which help to strengthen their muscles and organs,” Ms Nhu said.

The number of the class members varied each day, between 15 and 30, as not all patients could make it to the class on a regular basis due to their different treatment schedules. However, all of them show their keen interest in doing yoga with great pleasure.

According to Doctor Le Quoc Tuan, the Dean of the hospital’s Oncology Ward, yoga exercises are highly recommended by the World Health Organisation as a beneficial move to enhance physical strengths.

As for cancer patients, yoga activities help them relieve stress, relax the muscles and calm the mind, and especially, gain spiritual strength to brace for tense treatment sessions.

Ms Nhu friendly chatting with cancer patients after the class

A regular trainee at this special yoga class said, suffering from breast cancer for the last decade, the disease had metastasised all over her body. She’d had to undergo prolonged radiotherapy sessions and her health had deteriorated day by day. Her arms stiffened, her body ached, and there were times she could not move her body an inch.

Encouragingly, now, she’s able to raise her arms higher than she could ever imagine.

Other patients, time by time, now also get accustomed to the yoga exercises. They felt very happy with considerable improvements in their health, and their body movements got easier when practicing yoga.

Aware of the benefits yoga bring to cancer patients, Ms Nhu promised that she would try to keep this meaningful class running as long as she can.

After the class, despite their physical pain sparked by the serious disease, the patients exchange their smiles, and say thank-you to kind-hearted ‘teacher’ Nhu for her good deed.