It's terrific to be back in the southern part of Vietnam, in the Mekong Delta. Our team's flights from San Francisco and Taiwan were easy-breezy. EVA Airlines is always great to fly with, especially when you are planning to sleep through much of the 18-hour flight time!
The city of Can Tho continues to grow. I was last here with the team in 2015, and the city has gained more scooters, more cars, more traffic, and a little more of a tourist orientation. With a growing middle class, more Vietnamese people are traveling around their country. In addition, more foreign tourists are including Can Tho in their Mekong Delta visits. Now there are new tourist attractions, including scenic bridges and light sculptures along the Mekong River.
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| Sunrise yesterday morning before heading to the hospital |
I've already dug in to many of my favorite foods, including rau muong (sauteed morning glory greens with garlic), goi cuon (fresh rice paper spring rolls with mint and rice noodles, dipped in a peanut + vinegar sauce), and a million forms of tofu. A new addition at lunch today was a taro soup that was a gorgeous shade of bright purple with chopped greens in it-- beautiful and delicious!
We got down to business on Monday. As you might know, I fill a few different roles during my time volunteering with this project. During the first few days, I am helping with intake of potential surgery patients at the General Hospital.
In this role, I am getting brief medical histories of children and adults with lower extremity injuries and deformities and organizing medical records. The podiatric and orthopedic surgeons on the team then assess these potential patients to determine if they would be good candidates for surgeries.
Intake and screenings are always busy days. People travel 2-3 hours to Can Tho to find out if they could benefit from these potentially-life-changing surgeries. We screened almost 90 people in the last day and a half, with approximately 1/3 of them emerging as good candidates for surgeries.
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| Entrance to the general hospital |
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| Nurse Madison, Surgeon Meir Nyska, Interpreter Mai Phan |
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| Hospital pharmacy- families typically purchase necessary medicines and drugs for their hospitalized family members here. |
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| Interior view of the 1100-bed hospital |
Each collaboration with the general hospital begins with a welcome set of speeches and expressions of gratitude. This year marks 20 years of collaboration between the US-based project and this group of Vietnamese doctors!
Busts of Ho Chi Minh are always featured in the meeting rooms. To the right is Dr. Bruce Lehnert, one of our project directors.
Once the initial greetings were completed, we got to work:
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| Setting up our intake desk with Mai, Alice, Jenni, and Kim |
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Reunited with Hoa, a long-time interpreter who started with us 8+ years ago
when she was a wee Can Tho University student! |
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| patient x-rays |
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| Mai consulting with a family |
We have the opportunity to help a terrific number of people. Of course, I'm always excited to talk with parents and interact with their children. I have lots of people photos to organize, so more of those to come. Here are a few of the children and families that we have met in the last 2 days.
Not all of the children that come to this hospital screening are good candidates for surgery. Fortunately, my long-time pal, Stacy, is our team's physical therapist. Stacy has the opportunity to consult with those families and make recommendations for what families can work on at home.
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| Dr. Thuyet was a tremendous help in interpreting and counseling families. |
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| Terrific to see use of a lightweight wheelchair-esque piece of equipment. Many children with mobility challenges are often carried by family members, rather than having access to equipment. This is a real area of education and resource need. |
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| Counseling on home exercise and strengthening programs. |
Two genuine surprises and treats at the end of the day! A visit to our hotel from Thuy (in the blue top), who was an interpreter for us in the early years of the project, when she was a university student. She is now a nanotechnology researcher and project director at Can Tho University and the mom of 2 adorable kids. Thuy's mother, Lan (holding Thuy's daughter), is a longtime friend of the project and a local educator. It was beyond heart-warming to see them!
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| Lan, Thuy, and Dr. Meir Nyska |
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| Dr. Jeff Spanko, Phuong, Lan |
And I'll leave you with a moment of delicious food. A local southern Vietnam treat is xoi do banh. This particular variety contains white and black sticky sweet rice, tons of shredded coconut, a layer of sugar paste, and salty crushed peanuts, all wrapped in two thin toasty rice pancakes. Heaven for 60 cents! My favorite purveyor was in the same place she has been for the last 15 years that I've been coming to Can Tho, surrounded by her drive-up scooter customers:
Lots more to come from me as I start to do more speech-language pathology things! A happy and healthy New Year to you!
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