Motorbike gift for a village health worker in Cam Lo District

14-07-2008

In June 2008, Project RENEW received an announcement from Tromsoe Mine Victim Resource Center (TMC) that one Norwegian donated a new motorbike for Mrs. Huong, a village health worker in Cam Chinh Commune, Cam Lo District through TMC. After receiving the grant of $938 US, Project RENEW contacted the beneficiary, handed over the grant and helped her to purchase a desired new motorbike.

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Mr Dang Quang Toan – MSA P.O handing over the motorbike to Mrs Huong on behalf of the donor

In March 2008, Ms Susan Eckey from The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs took a visit to Project RENEW and its activities. During this visit, she met with Mrs. Nguyen Thi Huong, a village health worker in Cam Chinh Commune, Cam Lo District, Quang Tri Province . Ms Susan showed great sympathies for Mrs. Huong family’s difficult living conditions. She was so moved knowing that a cluster munition accident had forever taken away Mrs Huong’s four-year old daughter and also one of her husband’s leg.

Currently, Mrs Huong’s family suffers from poor living standards. Mrs. Huong’s now 48 years old and her husband is 52. They have to feed two children at school age. Following in her father’s steps, she has been working as a village health worker for 8 years. On average every month, she helps 12 trauma patients who have suffered landmines/UXO and traffic accidents, as well as from other kinds of diseases.

In December 2007, VA Program – Project RENEW cooperated with Quang Tri Health Service and Cam Lo District Health Sector to organize five two-day training courses on Basic Life Support for 109 village health workers in Cam Lo District.

According to Mrs. Huong, the training course has provided her with useful knowledge on basic life support, especially A-B-C systemization and first-aid skills. She does hope that Project RENEW will continue to organize more medical training courses so that she will become better trained; two-day Basic Life Support training is too short for her to achieve all the knowledge and experience of trauma care that Dr. Hans Husum, surgeon and PhD mentioned in his book “Save Lives, Save Limbs”.