Doctors go to Laos to treat and save people

(Baonghean) - In 2016, implementing the cooperation program in medical examination, treatment and training of medical personnel between Nghe An General Friendship Hospital and Xieng Khouang Hospital (Lao PDR), 13 highly skilled doctors from Nghe An General Friendship Hospital went to work in the neighboring country... Those were truly trips with many memories and experiences.

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Nghe An General Friendship Hospital presents souvenirs to Xieng Khouang Hospital (Laos). Photo: Hoang Yen

Master, Doctor Phan Sy Thai (Orthopedic Trauma Department, Nghe An General Hospital) is one of the three doctors who went to the neighboring country in the first batch (from early July to early August 2016), right after the signing ceremony of the cooperation agreement between the two hospitals. He said that when he was sent on the mission, he and the doctors in the group could not help but worry: "Partly because the place was strange, partly because we did not understand the foreign language, we did not know how to treat patients, prescribe for patients, and transfer techniques to the foreign doctors?". Fortunately, many of the foreign doctors and nurses knew Vietnamese, so the language barrier was no longer a major barrier.

Upon arriving in the neighboring country, the medical team faced many difficulties, not only their own difficulties, as the doctors were all men and were not used to cooking or eating Lao food. The most notable difficulty was the lack of facilities and equipment at the provincial hospital in Xieng Khouang province. “We were really surprised because the facilities of the provincial hospital in the neighboring country were only equivalent to those of our district hospital. There was a lack of equipment, especially the blood supply was not even enough for a patient in need of a blood transfusion, not to mention the shortcomings in the qualifications of the medical staff.

Regarding the patients, in general, most of them are poor people. When a family has a sick person, they will move the whole family (all family members) and bring along items such as blankets, pots and pans, and even vehicles to live at the hospital. Moreover, the patients who come to the hospital are only when their illness is really serious.

That is why it is difficult to treat. However, the warm feelings of patients and colleagues from other countries helped us forget many hardships and focus on our tasks" - Doctor Thai recalled.

Although he is very young, Master - Doctor Tran Cuong (born in 1988, Department of Traumatology - Orthopedics) has relatively experienced skills in handling surgical procedures for trauma. His father was also a soldier who participated in the international mission against the Pol Pot genocidal army in the Cambodian battlefield and returned with serious injuries, so as soon as he was sent by his unit to Laos with an obstetrician and an anesthesiologist to actively examine and treat people and transfer technology to colleagues in Laos, he did not hesitate to go. He shared: "Although he was not on the list of doctors on the first trip (Doctor Cuong came here on the third trip, from the end of August to the end of September 2016), the difficulties that the doctors on the first and second trips mentioned, we only understood when we experienced them.

For people in Xieng Khouang, for patients who do not have the means, when they have broken bones of all kinds, they can only use a splint or a cast; for those who have more means and want to have surgery to insert nails or other procedures, they have to rent a car to go to the capital Vientiane or go to a hospital in Vietnam... We have also witnessed some serious cases that require immediate intervention, the patient and his family are still waiting for the opinion of the village elders and clan leaders and often decide to take them home when there is still a chance to save their lives. Of course, in Vietnam, this sometimes happens, but here we see it more often. Most of the cases when discharged from the hospital rarely return for follow-up examinations."

For Dr. Thai, he remembers most the time he donated blood to a pregnant woman in Xieng Khouang. “That morning, the three of us got up, quickly made a package of shrimp noodles (noodles bought by the hospital to support the group in case they were hungry late at night) and then went to work because the restaurant there was quite far away, and food was more expensive than here.

After the end of the working day, I still hadn't seen the other two doctors come back (Doctor Trung specialized in Obstetrics, Doctor Hieu specialized in Anesthesia). When I asked, I learned that the two doctors were busy performing a cesarean section for a pregnant woman. When the afternoon working day ended, I returned to my room but the two doctors still hadn't returned. I called to ask and learned that the two doctors were performing a second surgery on the pregnant woman because she had uterine atony and hemorrhage. At 10 pm, I picked up the phone to call my two colleagues, only to hear Mr. Trung hurriedly ask: "What is Thai's blood type?" I said "type A". So he told me to wait there for the hospital car to come and take her for a blood test to... donate blood. At 12 pm, I went to give the pregnant woman a blood transfusion, then took turns with my two colleagues to stay at the hospital to monitor her until the end of the night. My two colleagues had lunch at midnight that night. During the night, after receiving the blood transfusion, the pregnant woman showed signs of improvement, however, a lot of blood was still needed to save her life. It was not until the third day that the mother was able to get another unit of blood, but it was too late, and her family asked to take her home. Watching the car take her home, I wanted to cry. It was not simply pity for a human being, but the tears of helplessness of a doctor.

Surgery at Xieng Khouang Hospital (Laos) with the help of doctors from Nghe An Provincial General Hospital. Photo: Hoang Yen

But those were just rare cases that they had to give up. The appearance of the Nghe An doctors brought joy and life to the patients. If in the past, with childbirth cases, if the mother suffered from postpartum hemorrhage, the mortality rate was very high, then since the Nghe An doctors came and transferred the technique, this rate has decreased a lot. In one month of the last batch, they saved the lives of at least three women who suffered from postpartum hemorrhage, which was considered a miracle in the neighboring province.

During his visit to examine and treat patients, Dr. Cuong still could not forget the face of a 20-year-old young man from Anh Son, Nghe An province who went to a neighboring country to work as a carpenter and had three fingers amputated. When he was first admitted to the hospital, the foreign doctors consulted and determined to remove the severed finger joints. But at that time, he proposed to perform surgery to reattach the patient's fingers. He called more foreign doctors to come and "show him how to do it". The reattachment of the fingers was successful. Only a few months later, when he returned to Nghe An General Hospital, Dr. Cuong met the young man again at his department for a re-examination. The young man was moved to say thank you to the young doctor. Or the case of a 10-year-old child from a poor family in Xieng Khouang province who had a broken leg and had been previously put in a cast. Because his leg was in a cast that was not properly aligned, he could not walk. His family had determined that he would be bedridden for the rest of his life. However, with a simple procedure, Dr. Cuong nailed his leg back together and his leg was able to move normally again.

Those happy and sad memories followed the "volunteer doctors" back to their homeland, reminding them of love and responsibility. The warmth and friendliness of the Lao people made their business trip not just a mission trip. It truly left deep impressions, memorable and cherished feelings in life. It was from this trip that Doctor Thai, Doctor Cuong and other doctors such as Vo Ta Trung, Tran Huu Hieu, Phan Ngoc Khoa, Tran Xuan Canh, Hoang Ngoc Anh... felt more mature, knew how to look deeper and share more with people and life.

“People’s lives are so hard, but every time we meet experts like us on the street, people from other countries warmly welcome and greet us. Many people have come to take us to visit historical sites and scenic spots in other countries to both introduce our country and express their gratitude,” said Dr. Cuong.

The greatest joy for them is that after a month of duty, some basic skills for treating, operating on trauma, giving birth and anesthetizing have been quickly absorbed and successfully performed by their colleagues in the host country. Currently, some doctors from the host country continue to be sent to Nghe An General Hospital to study and receive new ways of treating diseases, using the most effective medical equipment.

“When we leave, we do so because of our duty, but when we return, we have more responsibility and affection” - that is what all the medical teams leaving Xieng Khouang Hospital shared with us when they returned.

Thuy Vinh - Xuan Cao