IAs was done on Monday the team was broken up into different groups. I decided to accompany the doctors going to the Ha Tay General Hospital in the Hanoi area to observe and to help with interpreting duties.

Upon arrival at the Ha Tay General Hospital complex we were ushered into a conference room where the Canadian and American doctors on the team were to give training seminars for the entire morning. While giving some introductions between the hospital director and the Project Vietnam team, the Vietnamese pediatric doctors gathered for the seminar.

Dr Chinh Le had came with the group again as he had the previous day. Dr Chinh Le is a retired Kaiser infectious disease doctor who lives in Davis, CA. He is now on a volunteer assignment with CDC (Center for Disease Control, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and is an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services). He is working with the Vietnamese Government health officials to set up infectious disease prevention program for the country. He and his wife are living in Hanoi for six months or longer while he is on this assignment.

After a morning of training sessions for the Vietnamese doctors on resuscitation, newborn and emergency care, the team took a break for lunch at a nearby restaurant hosted by the director of the hospital. It was a typical Vietnamese meal except for the serving of French fries. We all had a laugh about that. But it was a nice social time when the American/Canadian doctors could talk with their Vietnamese counterparts.

After lunch we spent the time touring the critical care section of the pediatrics ward. It was an "eye opener" to see their facility compared to a typical hospital in the USA for pediatrics. Almost all equipment was old, patched up, or was inadequate. The operating room was pretty minimal with a very little monitoring equipment. Hospital latex gloves were washed and reused again drying on racks in the hallway—open to the outside air and probably dust, and who knows what, landing on the gloves. They only have two baby respirators for the entire hospital and those are patched up with tape. The Project Vietnam team members promised to get them new ones. The mothers of the sick babies stay with them all the time to care for their needs. I talked with many of them to learn about their conditions. But most of the time while touring was spent interpreting for the American/Canadian doctors.

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