REFUGEE WORK IN VIETNAM DESCRIBED

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31316, 11 March 1967, Page 17

REFUGEE WORK IN VIETNAM DESCRIBED

Between 70 to 80 patients a day are being treated in the Vietnamese refugee camp clinic run by Miss L. Wray, of Waimate, for the World Council of Churches. This information has been received in a letter from Miss Wray to the inter-church aid secretary of the National council of Churches, Mr F. G. Heard.

The camp where the clinic is situated is at Tuy Hoa, on the east coast of South Vietnam, 200 miles north-east of Saigon. The camp houses 2890 people, 1900 of whom are in permanent accommodation and the remainder in reception centres awaiting permanent housing. The clinic was opened on January 27, and Miss Wray writes that most of the cases dealt with have been skin irritations, coughs, infected sores, and respiratory conditions. There have also been a few cases of malaria, mumps and measles. Each patient to the clinic receives a card noting the time of new appointments. To

eensure that doses of medicine are taken when prescribed, most are administered at the clinic by Miss Wray or the Vietnamese nurse on the staff. An American Army doctor visits the clinic two days a week.

The clinic is part of the work of a relief team of about six members which includes a health visitor who cooperates with the nurses in inspecting living conditions, and a social worker who arranges supplementary food for those refugees recommended by the nurses. At present the team is living in an old house about three miles from the camp. This building is very much in need of repair, and it hoped soon to construct a prefabricated building on a site in the camp itself. The World Council expects to send another refugee team to a camp at Qui Nam which will house twice as many refugees as Tuy Hoa. Miss A. Thompson, of Westport, who will leave for Vietnam on Saturday is. expected to be the nurse in this unit.