N.Z. Surgeons In Vietnam Work Under Difficulties

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30804, 16 July 1965, Page 1

N.Z. Surgeons In Vietnam Work Under Difficulties

(From E. B. LOCK. Special Correspondent of “The Press ”) SAIGON, July 5. Work for the two New Zealand surgeons at Qui Nhon, in the South Vietnamese province of Binh Dinh, has been increasing steadily in recent weeks until they are now operating at the rate of nearly 200 patients a month. Most of the patients have been injured peasants—victims of Viet Cong attacks or caught in cross-fire between South Vietnamese Government troops and Viet Cong forces.

The third team of New Zealanders to run a section of the provincial hospital at Qui Nhon has had to set limits to working hours in the face of unlimited demands.

Government control in Binh Dinh is now restricted to a few fortified towns, and casualties in the countryside are

many. Qui Nhon itself has been free of Viet Cong incidents. United States Marines have been replacing Vietnamese Rangers there in the last few days. In addition to operating in two theatres, the surgeons. Dr. P. F. Howden and Dr. J. J. Enwright. both of Auckland, care for 200 to 250 recovering patients in their section of the hospital. Many are two and three to a bed in the overcrowded wards. OTHER PROBLEMS Language, difficulty in obtaining blood for transfusions, and the intense heat and high humidity are among their problems. For three weeks the theatres have been without air-conditioning, and the doctors and nurses have had to work through the day bathed in perspiration from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. or 8 p.m.. when they are usually able to stop.

They also work one night a week. Only Sunday is free. Vietnamese are reluctant blood donors, and the last team failed to break down this resistance. Dr. Howden is planning another campaign to enlist donors. The anaesthet.st, Dr. I. L. G. Hutchison, also of Auckland. is assisted by a Vietnamese in the second theatre, and six male nurses are attached to the team. AFTER DISCHARGE

The surgeons and three nursing sisters from Auckland, Miss Faye Potterton, Miss Rae Thomas, and Miss Gladys Taylor, work in their four wards with Vietnamese interpreters. They never know what happens to the patients on discharge. “I expect they find relatives in Qui Nhon or are put into refugee housing,” said Dr. Howden today in Saigon,

where he was ending a monthly, week-end visit to his family living there. “These are stoical people. After years of war nothing seems to disturb them. They do not seem to suffer very much. They just want to be left alone, though they accept what we are doing in the hospital. We are welcome here, and this programme must be continued," he said. “They are family-minded people, and patient often come into the city with the rest of their family. Their house may have been destroyed, or parents killed. "WANT SECURITY" “I would say that all they want is not to be shot at. They just want to be left alone. If someone can offer them that security, that is the side they will join. “It is no use trying to impose Western ideas on them. Even Europeans who speak their language find it difficult to comprehend their thinking. If we want to help them, we must go further than half-way to meet them.”