On Wednesday the team again broke into groups with the pediatric surgery doctors returning to NIP to confer with their counterparts. I spent the day again going with the pediatric doctors that I spent Tuesday with. This day was entirely at the NIP, the main hospital for pediatrics for all of Vietnam. This is the hospital where the best treatment for pediatrics is done. And, despite that boast, it is probably worse than the most minimal hospital in the USA.

We toured the critical care section for the NIP and again I spent most of my time interpreting for the doctors. As we toured the critical care section we saw several newborns that suffered brain hemorrhage from Vitamin K deficiency. Every year 12,500 newborn babies are hospitalized with this and cause 2000 of them to die. It can be prevented by one injection of Vitamin K after birth, at a cost of 50 cents per baby. VNHELP has provided money for this effort. The sight of these extremely sick babies is a very sad sight to see. And, it is so preventable and yet here in Vietnam it happens frequently because of inadequate medical care.

As I toured with the group I talked with many of the parents who watch over their sick babies. They stay with them in the rooms with no air conditioning, or TVs to watch—often standing at their baby's bedside hour after hour. Even with these dismal conditions, this is the best pediatrics hospital in the country. We saw a hospital employee pump by hand a forced air breathing apparatus. There is not automatic equipment to do this 24 hours a day, as in the United States. Someone must stay with the baby doing this day and night. I wonder what would happen if during the night the employee falls asleep doing this hand pumping.

On the tour we see some of the respiratory equipment that Jeff Ung, respiratory therapist from the Alberta's Children's Hospital in Calgary, has been working during the week to get it into useable condition again. Many of these items were donated by Project Vietnam the year before but now have fallen into disrepair.

After spending the day at NIP, the team takes a much-needed break and goes shopping in the old area of Hanoi. Many buy silk items. I assist the team in interpreting with the shop owners and doing some bartering for them. Later we all go out to dinner.

After dinner some of the team goes to the Hanoi train station to take the 12-hour overnight train to Quang Binh providence south of Hanoi. I go with the team members, which includes Dr Quynh Kieu, Project Vietnam coordinator. Our train leaves at 930p and we sit in the waiting room of the train station. The waiting area is crowded and everybody is watching the TV. We are surprised to see it is MTV and they are playing mostly American songs—here in Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam (and former North Vietnam). It seems ironic. Finally our train rolls in and it is mad dash with our luggage and medical supplies.

Once on the train we find our sleeping cabins, which are six beds to a cabin with "hard beds"—wood board to sleep on with a thin straw mat. The train has no air conditioning and thus, the windows must be left open all night for cooler air. And, because the windows are open you hear all the train and track noise. It is like sleeping in the middle of a factory. But we all are so tired it does not make any difference and we sleep through the night. This is not the express train and we make many stops. Often we are parked on sidetracks to allow the express trains to pass by. All night we are stopping and going. A few times during the night I smell the pho cart going through the train selling food to the passengers

[March 22] [March 23] [March 24] [March 25] [March 26] [March 27] [March 28] [March 29] [March 30] [March 31] [April 1]