COUNTRY: Vietnam
PROGRAM: UniBreak Groups
PROJECT: Community Healthcare: Paramedic & Nursing Students
WRITTEN BY: Laura Bainger, Flinders University
So, we have been in Vietnam for about a week now, and I'll do my best to cover everything that we have packed in so far...please excuse any medical jargon!
Before even making it to Hanoi we had an overnight stop over in KL, and managed a cheeky trio into the city to some markets to buy some counterfit goods. So far we have had several days in Hanoi and a night in the rural village of Mai Chau. Hanoi is a very busy city, we stayed in the French Quarter in a nice hotel, and got to spend a few days exploring the city. The streets are chaotic, I think I can speak on behalf of most of the group when I say our mothers would have a pink fit if they saw the way we have to cross the street! The roads are busy with motorbikes and scooters, punctuated by a few cars...and no such thing as a crosswalk! The only thing to do is take a deep breath and glide.
Functional chaos is a pretty good description of this country. The architecture is really unique, all of the buildings are maybe 4m wide and 3-5 stories high with wooden shutters on all of the windows (a remainder from the French presence several decades ago), And fed by scary amounts of electrical cables. At night time when the humidity eases off slightly, the streets come alive, with lots of local people coming out and eating at small eateries on the sidewalks (the traditional Vietnamese restaurants are usually the fronts of people's homes so tiny tables are out outside!).
One day we drove a couple of hours out to an orphanage outside of Hanoi. It was set up 29 years ago for street kids from Hanoi. We spent a little bit of time there with some gorgeous kids which was great. In Hanoi we visited the Confucius Temple which has been really well looked after. We also had a good look around an Ethnological museum and learnt about Vietnam's 54 different hill tribes.
The highlight of Hanoi was probably visiting one of their state run hospitals. This was an education. The tour started with having a chat with a neurosurgeon. The hospital has around 500 Beds but often there are up to 800 patients - bed sharing is the norm. The hospital has all of the major departments that could be found in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, but there is no privacy, nor mattresses available for patients. The paramedic students gawked at the ambulances - which has a stretcher and maybe an oxygen cylinder. We saw one come in, and there was an elderly man who had come from a smaller hospital who had been coughing up blood. To get him out of the ambulance he was carried by the family (stretcher didn't conveniently fold out like in Adelaide), and then did the same thing to get him to the hospital bed.
The equipment in the ED was outdated but looked after with great care - the defibrillator had the old school paddles instead of disposable sticky pads, the ECG machine has suction caps on the ends of the leads, again instead of disposable ones, the airway equipment was very old and the drug cupboard was unlocked! When we walked around the wards with some doctors we came across a lot of people who had brain bleeds - mostly due to scooter accidents. Helmets are the law but they are not well made. Even the most critical patients didn't have ECGs, oxygen and just basic things which we take for granted. I don't think any of us will whinge about the Australian health care system when we get home. But the doctors that we came across were passionate about what they were doing, and were more than happy to show us around and talk to patients (despite the fact that they were treating patients on the way because they were so busy).
Today we head off to the Mai Chau Valley, 3 hours west of Hanoi (north Vietnam), a very poor region of Vietnam, where we will visit another hospital and also help out at some health clinics...stay tuned for the next update!
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