Shiraishi Sumie

My first visit to Vietnam was in 1991 as a member of Japa Vietnam team. I landed in Ho Chi Minh and visited places in the South. This time I landed in Hanoi with the feeling that the clock had stopped and the time did not move for more than 10 years, but I was mistaken. Vietnam had moved ahead and time was also running as fast as in Japan.

Our car headed towards the province of Cao Bang, North of Hanoi. We were soon surrounded by rural areas and mountains. From the window of the car I could see many poor houses by the slopes of the mountains and electric poles planted in the middle of rice fields. Electricity seemed to reach all houses and I could see many TV sets. This view continued all the way, leaving behind the city of Cao Bang till the border with China. It was a surprise to realize that TV has become a universal relaxation tool in Vietnam as well in Japan. When I entered later, during our tour, rural villages the view was different. Since I work as a midwife in Japan my main interest this time was the public hospital of Cao Bang. When I visited Vietnam 11 years ago with the already deceased Mrs. Ishimoto Akemi, one of the founders of Japa Vietnam, I heard from her about the distressful situation of that hospital at the time and I got deeply impressed.

The hospital now is a two stories new concrete building with several units. The staff led us to the Pediatric Unit. UNICEF posters about how to feed babies, how to deal with common children�fs diseases and hygiene could be seen pasted in the walls. There was a small room equipped with some educational materials to teach young mothers sanitary education. They showed us the patients�f rooms. The children accompanied by their mothers smiled to us. Throat diseases seem to be common in this mountain region and the doctor told us that the children there were suffering from asthma. Some rooms had new INOX stainless beds, provided by Japa Vietnam, and there were also old wooden beds in other rooms.

The children were lying on thin mats spread on the beds, like it is customary in the mountain villages. Again Japa Vietnam is providing mattresses that will be healthier for the sick children. I realized there how helpful is such realistic assistance.

In the consultation room the doctor was attending a child with asthma. The parents had to walk long hours through the mountains to bring the child to see the doctor. There was practically nothing in the room except an oxygen-breathing machine donated by Japa Vietnam. I remembered the Japanese hospitals so well equipped. One could not see patients with heavy diseases that day and I received the impression that the main task was preventive medicine and public health care. Cao Bang is a province composed of several ethnic minorities that often cannot afford medical expenses. Of course, everything is linked to the whole medical system. A few days later we visited rural areas of Nghe An, where Japa Vietnam has also helped to build a clinic and assist the training of its medical staff, and I could understand better that the only option left to sick people is to visit simple clinics. Preventive medicine is very important in Vietnam. The hospital of Cao Bang conducts intensive seminars for its own staff and to better the health and sanitary education of young mothers from ethnic groups living in mountain areas. Japa Vietnam has been cooperating for nearly 10 years in those programs.

While we were visiting the hospital we passed through the child delivery room and by chance a young mother was about delivering her child. There was no door but only a curtain dividing the room from the corridor. The doctors knowing that I was a midwife invited me to attend the delivery of a new human life. The medical equipment, compared to Japan, is quite poor, most probably the same as 11 years ago Ishimoto Akimi told me, but the joy of the mother at the birth of her child is the same in both countries.