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GOOD-BYE VIETNAM
by Ed Oshiro,
MPH (Master of Public Health)
Thirty minutes after our Vietnam Airline flight departed from Tan Son
Nhut airport in Ho Chi Minh City, we looked down upon the denuded red
plains and my wife and I instantaneously felt an incredible sense of
relief and freedom. We were finally free from the daily harassment,
intimidation and greed of the Vietnamese officials and we could actually
feel the weight of the last three months lift off our shoulders.
It all began last fall when I was accepted as the overseas manager for
the East Meets West Foundation which operated primary care clinic for
the "poorest of the poor" and an orphanage for 125 children on the
outkirts of Da Nang, Vietnam. I had decided to take advantage of the
early retirement package offered by Group Health and retired in January
with the intention of volunteering in Vietnam for a year or two,
beginning in mid-January. My mission was to help the clinic become more
efficient and effective and to conduct pilot public health education
programs in four remote villages. My wife was assigned to work with the
orphanage as an art and recreation instructor, and to teach English to
the staff.
A preview of what we were to experience in country actually began when
we flew to San Francisco to pick up our visa on our way to Vietnam. Upon
our arrival in San Francisco, we were advised that the Foreign Minister,
who issues the visas, wanted us to rent his appartment in Da Nang for
$700 a month, with a six month advance payment. We objected, he refused
to issue the visas, so we return to Seattle while the Foundation
continued the negotiations. Finally, in February, we agreed to the
arrangement, paid him $4200, and with a 3 month instead of a 12-month
visa, flew to Vietnam. When we arrived, the apartment, of course, still
being renovated so we were compelled to stay in a hotel at $45 a day.
Upon entering Vietnam, all of our computer discs were cofiscated and
only after paying a $40 "handling fee" and copies had been made (for
later resale) were they returned to us three weeks later.
On our first day in the office, I picked up the telephone to call my
daughter in Seattle and noticed that martial music could be heard in the
background during our conversation. I later mentioned that to the
Vietnamese staff and they stated the police and military were listening
in on all of our telephone calls. We were also warned that our letters
were opened and read by the government, so we had to be careful what we
wrote. Once, I was required to take a month-end financial report to the
police and they decided whether it should be sent off or not.
A few days after we began working in the office, the Vietnamese
accountant left for Florida to marry an American doctor she had met when
he came to Da Nang to volunteer at the clinic. When we announced the
position, the minister sent us candidates who had no accounting training
nor English language skills and hired a certified accountant who spoke
fluent English. The Minister and the Security Police delayed approval of
the new employee, untill, we suspect, some money changed hands or she
agreed to kick back a percentage of her salary. We were informed that
all the Vietnamese employees were required to pay the police, government
offcials, party member, ect, a portion of their salary. The Security
Police came to our office to demand, several times, why we refused to
hire their candidates.
Incidentally, a Vietnamese physician applied for the accounting job
because he had been unemployed for over five years. Apparently, there
were hundreds of doctors that were unemployed in spite of the fact that
they are some of the lowest paid workers in Vietnam... $30 a month. I
never learned why there were so many unemployed doctors. I was told that
they had to pay upwards of $1500 to get practical training and
experience in a hospital after they completed their training. Without
the training, they were unemployable. I also became aware that there was
tremendous discrimination against the South Vietnamese, especially these
whose family members supported the defeated government. Most of the
unemployed doctors we met were South Vietnamese.
During my orientation in the States, I was warned that the doctors at
the Peace Village Clinic were lazy and unmotivated, and only knew how to
prescribe vitamins. After spending a few days with the doctors, I found
them to be very intelligent, very willing to learn to practice good
medicine and were eager to receive any assistance that would enable them
to become good practitioners. Unfortunately, their medical training was
so poor and inadequate that they were only qualified to prescribe
vitamins for every affliction. One day a week, the doctors visited one
of the surrounding villages and provided care to the people. I
accompanied them on several visits and noted that vitamins were
precribed for every ailment, malaria, blindness, fevers, parasites,
blood in the urine, diarrhea, ect. What else could they do? They didn't
have any other drugs except a few bottles of Ampicillin. The doctors
claim that they had to give the patients something to take home so they
prescribed vitamins. Made sense to me. Antibiotics may be purchased over
the counter so every Vietnamese already had several bottles at home. My
translater took antibiotics for headaches, colds, diarrhea, backache,
and when she just was not feeling well.
An OB/GYN doctor from San Diego spent a few days at the clinic and
showed the doctors how to use a vaginal speculum. A year later, he
returned and was very upset that the doctors were not using the speculum
and complained to the East Meets West Foundation Board in San Francisco
that the doctors were unmotivated and lazy. My report to the Board
questioned his assessment. The doctors could not be trained in diagnose
and treat gynecological diseases in a few days and the lab tech was only
able to do very simple tests. Even if they did, find something, there
were no drugs or equipment to treat the problem. Why look for something
if you can't do anything about it? I felt that some of the American
doctors who volunteered at the Peace Village Clinic were very
insensitive and did more harm than good.
As soon as I had settled in, I met with the Minister of Health with a
proposal to conduct a pilot public health project in four villages and
he seemed to be very enthusiastic about the idea. He accepted the
proposal and informed me that he would discuss it with the People's
Commitee and get back to me. Two weeks later, he sent me a letter
stating that the project was approved and that the Ministry would
implement it, but they wanted me to provide them with $20,000. I stated
that I did not have the money, only the knowledge, time and willingness
to do the training and work with the health workers, but they were not
interested in my participation - only my money. I was not invited back
to the Ministry.
When I visited my first village to do a health assessment. I was met by
the Director of the People's Committee who took me around to the homes
of the poorest families. At each farm house, he requested that I pay for
something that the family needed, for example: a new roof, a new well, a
new house, money for rice, clothes, wheel chair, etc. When I stated over
and over that I was not there to give them money, he finally told my
translator to get me out of the village. At another village, the
officials demanded that I provide them with funds to build a new school
and when they realized that I would not provide the funds, I was
immediately put under house arrest and ordered not to leave the grounds
of the People's Committe office. That night, I was ordered to sleep on
the dirty wood floor of the office with only a tattered blanket, and one
of the security police officer slept next to me to assure that I did not
leave the building. To add to my misery, the officer, whose hand had
been blown off by a land mine, place his stump on my stomatch all night
while he slept. I, of couse, did not sleep a wink and keep thinking who
would ever believe that I would be sleeping on the floor of a Communist
party office, next to a Viet Cong policeman whose handless arm rested on
my belly! It was one of strangest and scarrest night I have experienced.
I kept wondering if I was having a nightmare.
Because we were living in a hotel, we had to eat our meals in
restaurants. The only place we and most visitors could eat in Da Nang
without getting sick was a restaurant called Christies. Every night, we
met American marrines and soldiers who were in Vietnam searching for
MIA's. They stated that every village had a scam in operation. The
village leaders would claim to have burried in the rice fields two or
three Americans who had died during the war. It would cost the American
$10,000 to dig in the fields and to hire local workers. The officers we
talked to claimed that since 1991 they had found nothing and they didn't
expect to find anything. They were required to stay in Vietnam Army
Hotel for $75 a night and hire the Vietnam helicopter to take them to
the village. We were informed that it cost $750 an hour for the
helicopter ride. There were about 30 US military personel looking for
MIA's in Da Nang and every major city had a silmilar team. It is coating
the US milion of dollars and the Vietnamese are laughing all the way to
the bank!
After a couple of months, it became very evident to us that we were not
needed in VietNam. The orphanage was being very adequately funded by the
US Government and the Vietnamese staff was excellent. The kids were
attended in the government school, being provided with training in
carpentry, sewing, computer, etc ... and a full time physician took care
of the medical needs of the children. They had a basketball court,
ping-pong tables, television, videos, bicycles, computers, a vegetable
farm, and they raised chickens and pigs for income. The Vietnamese
claimed that these chidren, in fact, lived better than all other
children in Vietnam.
I was able to raise the salaries of all the doctors, and the rest of
clinic staff from $30 to $50 a month. The government required every
employee to be paid the same amount whether he/she were a doctor or
janitor. I also assisted in development of a long term continuing
education program for the doctors. A cadiologist from Japan is
sponsoring each year, one doctor from the Peace Village Clinic, who will
spend six months in her hospital in Osaka for next few years. The first
doctor left Osaka in June. I also opened communication with the Hue
hospital to accept our doctors into their resisdency program with us
paying for the training. I presented this proposal to East Meets West
Foundation Board on my last day in the country. Hopefully, the Boad will
vote favourably on this program. I feel that it is very inexpensive to
train the doctor for $1600.
Several weeks after we arrived in Da Nang, the Forein Minister demanded
more money to finish renovating the apartment to purchase furniture. We
were aware of this fact that a Vietnamese doctor makes $30 a month and
he would pay, perhaps $10-$15 a month to rent that apartment so we
politely ignore his demand for more money. He tightened the screws by
requiring us to to provide him with a detailed itinerary as to where we
would be every hour, two weeks in advance, by holding up our request for
a visa extention and by intimidating our Vietnamese office staff. Three
months after we arrived, the Foreign Minister said we could move into
the house and we did - for one night. It was only partially completed
with electric wires dangling from the ceiling, walls partially painted,
plumbing unconnected, no furniture and cockroaches crawling everywhere.
In a few minutes, I used up a can of insecticide and the floor was
covered with two-inch long cockroaches lying on their backs, leg
flailing away. We moved back to the hotel after one night. The minister
became very upset and advised us to leave the country if we were unhappy.
For the first time ever, we experience real fear. We realized that he
could jail us or arrange an accident and no one could do anything about
it.
Realizing that we were not really wanted or needed in the country, that
our contributions would be negligible, and that there was a real threat
to our safety, we made the decision to leave Vietnam. We agonized over
the decision because we had come to love the children in the orphanage
and the people working there as well as at the Peace Village Clinic. We
have very warm feelings for the Vietnamese people and the incredibly
beautiful country, and we would, someday, like to return there complete
the work we have begun.
One day, this generation of leaders will pass on and then Vietnamese
will emerge to become to the butterfly of Southeast Asia. |