An accident at the age of 12 left Ivan Pivac blind. He went on to train in acupuncture in Hong Kong, and has worked from his practice below his West Auckland home for 50 years. He tells Nicholas Jones why having no vision can be an advantage.
Ivan Pivac’s business is largely word of mouth, but occasionally someone turns up without realising the acupuncturist is blind. “People are quite astounded ..
. but basically there’s no problem, because they tell me, ‘You wouldn’t be here doing this work if you couldn’t cope with it’. “There’s only been one chap who admitted afterwards that he was in the waiting room and thought, ‘Hmm, I think I’ll leave’.
But he came in, with a very bad problem, and I fixed it.” More common is for Pivac, 76, to treat someone a few times before they dare ask whether he might have a problem with his vision. “I say, ‘No, I’m only totally blind’.
They think you can see a bit, because you can walk around and do things and so on, but they’re not quite sure how much you can see. But that doesn’t stop them coming back.” In September Pivac will mark 50 years performing acupuncture from a clinic on the lower storey of his Glendene, Auckland home.
He says he’s treated about 17,000 people over that time. A recent client returned for help with a sore neck, some 40 years after his last appointment. “A lot of people who turn up I may not have seen for 10 years or more.
But they always know that I’m here,” says Pivac. “O.