Check out this post from Children’s HeartLink, an organization now in its 40th year that sends volunteer medical teams and individual consultants to train, teach and perform life-saving heart procedures for children. They partner with hospitals in South Africa, Kenya, India, China, Ukraine, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brazil.
Greetings from Children’s HeartLink, an international medical NGO working to build sustainable programs to prevent, treat and cure heart disease among needy children in underserved regions of the world. We have a team in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam right now, working alongside a pediatric cardiac team from Singapore and a local team at Nhi Dong 1 (Children’s Hospital 1) to provide training, mentoring and patient treatment.
I wanted to share one small story about our work by introducing you to Le, one of several children receiving lifesaving treatment this week. Le, an only child, had a heart operation Monday, November 9 (his first birthday). When Le was only two weeks old, he developed pneumonia, and his parents took him to the provincial hospital near their home in Angiang Province. A doctor there discovered Le had a congenital heart defect—a ventricular septal defect, or “hole in the heart.” Since then, his family has been making the long trip to Ho Chi Minh City once every month so cardiologists can track his condition. While Le’s treatment expense is covered by the government, his family has had to borrow money to pay for the trips to Ho Chi Minh City, which is five hours by bus from their home. The family’s income is very limited, so this has been a struggle for them.
Now that Le has had his operation, his parents are hopeful he will recover rapidly and that their financial burdens will be lighter. Treating Le’s heart defect has given the family great hope of a better life for both their son and themselves.
Having worked as a volunteer with Children’s HeartLink for years now, I’ve seen this hope firsthand. Nothing brings more joy than a child’s beating heart, and this week in Vietnam is no exception. With 40 years of experience and partners in nine countries, Children’s HeartLink has extended access to high-quality pediatric cardiac care in places where it’s needed most.
-Dr. Joseph A. Dearani, Medical Director, Children’s HeartLink, Mayo Clinic, Division of Cardiac Surgery
Hanh is a HIV-positive widow in Vietnam who was featured in “A Powerful Noise,” which was produced by Unify Films with participation from CARE and ONE.
Hello! My name is Hanh and I am from Vietnam.
I grew up in an isolated island in the northeast of Vietnam. When I was 18 I got married and moved with my husband to a place about three hours by boat from my homeland. We lived there for three years before I decided finally to take my daughter to a Vietnamese hospital after she had been sick for a long time. That was when I found out she was HIV positive. Then, I found out that my husband was too. They told me I didn’t even have to take a test. All of us were infected.
My daughter was three-and-a-half-years old. Eventually, they both passed away.
I returned to my home, and decided I needed to take action within my community. We had many HIV/AIDS related activities sponsored by outside organizations and programs like PEPFAR.
Ninety percent of AIDS patients in my community are taking ARV’s provided by PEPFAR and one hundred percent of us have been benefitting from other PEPFAR programs. We have access to medicine as well as treatment and care for children. But it’s not always about medical care. We also benefit from training courses and community building activities.
There are still many more problems that arise in my community. We need to increase access to medical treatment, and more people are always becoming infected. We also need to address problems like women’s awareness of HIV/AIDS, sexual education and care for children.
I hope that more and more people will benefit from programs like PEPFAR. Of course, being a beneficiary of the program myself I understand how important it is.
I want to say personally and on behalf of all people living with HIV in Vietnam that we are very grateful for programs like PEPFAR. Thank you for going forward hand in hand with us on this. We need your support.
I ask that you please keep going on the road that you chose.
-Bui My Hanh
