Love from the city named after Uncle Ho
Like a circle of kindness, every April, sponsors, doctors and nurses from Ho Chi Minh City return to Uncle Ho's hometown to examine, give gifts, provide medicine and perform free surgery for children with motor disabilities.
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Provincial leaders and sponsors presented gifts |
During the first days of the humanitarian surgery at Vinh Rehabilitation and Orthopedics Center, we saw the tired faces, due to lack of sleep and anxiety of the children's relatives. "For more than 7 years now, my child has lived with cramped legs, I feel so sorry for him that I can't help him...", Ms. Phan Thi Binh from Yen Thanh district, holding a 7-year-old child who looks like a 3-year-old, confided. Most of the families have the same poor situation, not having enough conditions (mainly financial) to treat their children. Doctor Le Duc To - the one with the golden hands to perform surgeries on disabled children, is also the one who has directly performed surgeries on hundreds of children with motor disabilities in Nghe An. This time, he and the doctors of Vinh Rehabilitation and Orthopedics Center directly performed 102 surgeries. According to Mr. Le Duc To, each of the simplest orthopedic and rehabilitation surgeries costs 3 million VND or more. Not to mention that it takes many more months of training and rehabilitation massage for the surgery to be effective. The statistics are incomplete (not to mention the number of children with disabilities of all kinds that arise each year, up to more than 2,000 children), currently in our province there are over 30,000 children in especially difficult circumstances, over 13,000 children with disabilities of all kinds, over 5,000 children waiting for surgery. It is worth mentioning that most of the children with motor and mental disabilities are normal and still go to school normally. If they are operated on and rehabilitated, most of them will live and integrate into the community. The 102 surgeries this time, sponsored by the Ho Chi Minh City Association for the Relief of Disabled Children through the Provincial Children's Fund, are a great happiness for poor families with disabled children. We witnessed the tears of joy and gratitude of relatives from the remote mountainous district of Tuong Duong, when the doctors completed the first surgery on paralysis for Cut Kim Lieu - a Khmu ethnic (22 years old in Huoi Xen village, Yen Na commune). Mr. Lu Van Tuyen - 33 years old (whose daughter was paralyzed and underwent surgery during this operation) confided: "We are extremely grateful to the Party, the State, those who work to care for and protect children, enthusiastic doctors and nurses, and kind-hearted businessmen".
On the second and third days of the surgery, the initial tension and anxiety gradually faded away from the faces of the parents and relatives of the children. Instead, there were looks of hope and joy. The humanitarian surgery had gone nearly half way. It was expected that the surgery would be completed by April 20. And, also here, we witnessed many extremely touching stories and scenes of humanity and kindness. Families with children undergoing surgery shared bowls of rice and pieces of tofu during the days of waiting at the hospital. Doctors and nurses from the City named after Uncle Ho and doctors and nurses from the Vinh Orthopedic Rehabilitation Center worked until late at night without anyone showing signs of fatigue.
Article and photos: Thu Huong
