Katsumi Ogawa, Member of the House of Councillors, Chairman of the Health, Labour and Welfare Committee

Leveraging my expertise as a physical therapist, I aim to convey the importance of rehabilitation.

Katsumi Ogawa, Member of the House of Councillors, Chairman of the Committee on Health, Labour and Welfare

■ Profile
Born in Kitakyushu City, he is a physical therapist. After graduating from Kyushu Rehabilitation University, he engaged in clinical practice and education, while also serving as president of the Kumamoto Prefectural Physical Therapists Association and vice president of the Japan Physical Therapists Association.
She is currently a member of the House of Councillors (serving her second term). She has held key positions such as Chairperson of the Health, Labour and Welfare Committee (for the second time), Secretary-General of the Parliamentary League for Considering Rehabilitation, and Secretary-General of the Parliamentary League for Considering Comprehensive Support for Women through Care for Mothers Before and After Childbirth.

Katsumi Ogawa, who worked as a physical therapist in clinical settings and education before becoming a politician, is working to create a system where rehabilitation can be truly discussed, leveraging his field experience and expertise. We explored the source of his passion for creating a platform for policy discussion, including his desire to incorporate the voices of those on the front lines into every word of legislation and his awareness of the problems that hinder team-based medical care.

■ A path to directly interact with patients

My childhood dream, influenced by my mother's poor health, was to become a doctor. However, due to family circumstances, it became difficult for me to attend medical school. With the desire to at least be involved in healthcare, I decided to pursue a career as a physical therapist, a profession that was still relatively uncommon at the time.
At the time, the term "rehabilitation" was not widely known, and physical therapists themselves were a new and unusual profession, so I found it genuinely interesting. Above all, the biggest attraction was the opportunity to interact directly with patients. At Kyushu Rehabilitation University, where I enrolled, I focused on volunteer activities that created connections between children with disabilities and society. Through experiences such as visiting the homes of people with disabilities to help them go out and connecting people with disabilities with each other, I gained a sense of what it means to be a physical therapist and developed various awareness of issues. I believe this formed the core of my career as a physical therapist.
Anyway, having gained a certain amount of clinical experience as a physical therapist and seeking the next step in my career, I accepted a strong offer to become a teacher at a physical therapy training school, and thus changed my environment. As a result, I sometimes worked as a teacher during the day and studied economics and commerce as a student at a night university simultaneously. I didn't have any particular interest in commerce, but it proved to be very useful later when I served as vice president and secretary-general of the Japan Physical Therapy Association. It was an experience that made me realize once again that there is no such thing as a completely wasted experience in life. I would like to tell everyone that every single thing you experience becomes a part of you.

■A serious discussion about rehabilitation

I never dreamed of becoming a politician myself, and even now, running around inside the National Diet, it doesn't quite feel real. However, as an officer of the Physical Therapy Association, interacting with various people from government ministries and agencies has made me realize the importance of political power. Japan is a country governed by the rule of law, and the law is the norm for everything, so the way it is structured can change how people live. The same can be said for the medical field. While we are protected by the law, conversely, when we try to expand beyond that, the law can become an unnecessary barrier and prevent us from moving forward.
For example, even actions that should ideally be performed by qualified professionals with specialized knowledge are sometimes restricted by law because physical therapists are licensed. On the other hand, people with no qualifications at all can do all sorts of things precisely because they are not restricted by law. There is a lack of freedom in this kind of societal framework. I am currently working on these systemic problems, using social security as my field of focus.
Although I have experience in the field as a physical therapist, even within the field of physical therapy, my knowledge is still very limited. There is overwhelmingly more that I don't know, and the problems in individual areas can only be understood by directly asking people working in those fields. While I can make some assumptions about related fields, what I hear from people actually can be completely different. These voices from the field are put to good use in committees of various ministries and agencies, such as the Health, Labour and Welfare Committee in my case. Members of parliament from various backgrounds gather to refine discussions and revise the draft. Once a bill is approved by the Cabinet and submitted to the Diet, it is virtually impossible to change it, so it becomes necessary to voice concerns while revisions are still possible.
Furthermore, in order to have a discussion, we must first have a common ground with the other party. For example, while it has been said that rehabilitation is important in a society with a declining birthrate and an aging population, there has been no forum in Japan to discuss it as a policy until now. So, in my fifth year as a member of parliament, I established a "Subcommittee on Rehabilitation" within the Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council. It was necessary to take steps to make other members of parliament aware of rehabilitation, which takes time, but we have finally been able to spread specialized knowledge and create a platform where we can discuss policy with people who are not familiar with the issues in detail. In addition, there is a parliamentary league, and as another of my activities, I have begun to work towards promoting physical therapy in pregnancy and childbirth care and building a support system for women throughout their lives.

■ Aiming for "team-based medical care" that respects each other's expertise

The difficulties in driving policy forward lie in friction within the same industry and in coordinating with vested interests. Even when trying to achieve something, friction with other professions can arise, so it's necessary to coordinate with those around you to avoid causing trouble. However, when even a single word of my idea is included in a bill, and I feel a great sense of accomplishment knowing that I have made a concrete contribution to the country's actions as an individual.
The most pressing challenge facing Japan today is realizing "true team-based healthcare," where individuals with diverse expertise recognize and complement each other on an equal footing, creating synergistic effects. However, the current Japanese healthcare system is a top-down structure with doctors at the top, failing to utilize diverse perspectives. Considering the serious shortage of medical personnel that looms ahead, a system that allows for mutual cooperation to amplify the strengths of two individuals into that of three is essential. We hope to resolve these systemic problems as quickly as possible so that we can provide comprehensive support to each patient.

■Message to university students

University is an important place to cultivate a research mindset and to have many options from a wide range of interests. Even if you hit a dead end in life, it's important to be able to choose another path. For example, students studying rehabilitation are not necessarily limited to becoming physical therapists. The knowledge and skills they gain can be useful in everyday life, and there are many other jobs where they can put those skills to good use.
What I want you all to cherish is having an awareness of various issues, not just stopping at "that's a problem," but also thinking about solutions. By doing so, you will be able to have hope for your own lives. If there is something you want to do or wish would happen, please keep thinking about it. I believe from my own experience that if you keep that wish in mind, it will one day come true. Even if you start in a given environment, you create the environment that follows. If you talk about your ideals in everyday conversation, like-minded people will naturally gather around you, and it will become a great force. As a result, this may even lead to changing the country or politics. I, too, want to create a society where young people can continue to have hope and dreams.

Interview with Student Newspaper Online on December 1, 2026 by Satsuki Sakakura, a third-year student at Tokyo Metropolitan University

Kyohei Nakazawa (3rd year, Waseda University) / Ayatsuki Sakakura (4th year, Tokyo Metropolitan University) / Ayuri Nakatsu (2nd year, Dokkyo University) / Yurie Watanabe (3rd year, Josai International University) / Naokazu Shimada (4th year, Hosei University)