Hi everyone from Vietnam 2

Posted by Wayne Crossen

On Wednesday afternoon we were invited to an initial meeting with the Hospital. We donned our blue jackets and kaki slacks and busses over to the huge hospital. It occupies many blocks of the city with many separate buildings.

The conference room was well laid out with a central table and surrounding chairs. This was obviously a very formal occasion with the most important people sitting at the table and the lesser important sitting around the edges. At the head of the table was a bronze statue of Ho Chi Minh and the spot in front was unoccupied. The head of the hospital expressed his appreciation for us coming and welcomed us to the hospital. The head of the unit in the hospital that does plastic surgery welcomed us and cautioned us about minimizing complications in our patients. The head nurse spoke up next and expressed concern over the need to supply the families with a subsidy to help with their food and housing during the time their relative was being operated on. Our leader Bill outlined the investment that Rotaplast is putting into the project and the central figures retired to work out the details while the rest of us went on a tour of the hospital.

Again, it is massive. Beside our conference room workers were building a new multistory brick building to add onto the hospital. The floors and archways were cast concrete. The walls supporting the floors were brick. They were facing the bricks with concrete giving a smooth appearance of an all concrete structure.

We entered the floor dedicated for us to do the screening. It was at the top of the building and commanded a panoramic view of the city. Families with our prospective patients were living here for the time that the patient would be in our care. Many of the people had come from the hills and had spent many days traveling. I was surprised at how clean and well dressed they were. My preconception of people in poverty was wrong. Like people the world over, they take pride in their appearance and do their best to look good. I am sure many of them were wearing their best clothes but they all looked like they would fit in well. Everyone was very accommodating and polite.

Next we went on to the surgery and recovery rooms. They were spotlessly clean and workers seemed to be always mopping the floors somewhere on our travel. We didn't get into the operating theatres at this time because it was necessary to gown up and change shoes. That I will see at a later date. Down the hall on the same floor we were given a 4 bed room for our post-op. It had oxygen but no suction or monitors. Rotaplast is used to this and has their own anyway. Next we went on to see the wards. There were two that we would be dealing with. The first ward of 8 beds was for our surgery patients with cleft palettes. The second, in another building was for the dental and burn patients. Both rooms were separate from the OR building requiring us to use elevators and covered outside walkways. The walkways were always full of people. It was like walking down a very busy sidewalk at rush hour. Again, everyone was friendly and many nodded their heads or practiced their English hello. I felt sure that they were in awe of our size as many of them appeared to be less than a hundred pounds.

That night, Bill took us out for dinner at an ornate restaurant. It was obviously of East Indian heritage and was very decorative. The large structural art outside was a marvel and apparently is being examined for its unusual construction. Inside was a marvel of polished wood and brightly painted furnishings. We sat at two long tables with a raised stage in the corner at one end. Five musicians were seated on stools, two of which had a stringed instrument that looked like an overgrown guitar but with no sounding box. The musicians were dressed in traditional dress. The waitresses too were dressed in the traditional Vietnamese clothing. It is most spectacular with a pair of slacks over which there is a well fitted dress. The dress splits on both sides at the waist and flows down to floor length in front and behind. A most spectacular design.