N.Z. Medical Aid In Vietnam

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31728, 11 July 1968, Page 2

N.Z. Medical Aid In Vietnam

The influence of the New Zealand surgical team, now in its sixth year in Vietnam, was responsible for much-improved hospital conditions, the Director-General of Health (Dr D. P. Kennedy) said in Christchurch yesterday.

New Zealand medical aid was centred in the Binh Dinh province and the surgical team was operating in Qui Nhon, at a 400-bed provincial hospital carrying 800 patients. At the annual meeting of the Nurse Maude District Nursing Association yesterday, Dr Kennedy, who visited South Vietnam recently, showed slides of conditions at the hospital two years ago. Some wards then had nursing service for only eight hours a day, but now received 24-hour service from Vietnamese nurses.

The Save the Children Fund convalscent home at Qui Nhon was an important asset to the provincial hospital. It was opened in February, 1966, and the number of beds bad recently risen from 50 to 100, Dr Kennedy said. Fourteen countries had provincial health assistance programmes in South Vietnam. New Zealand had Red Cross workers, a surgical team and a Defence Department team, made up of three medical officers and 13 other ranks from the Army, Navy and Air Force combined. The service team was stationed at Bong Son, where there was a 16-bed dispensary, Dr Kennedy said. Tents were used to cope with more than 60 extra patients, but a new 101-bed hospital, built by the South Vietnamese Ministry of Health with United States aid, was duo to be commissioned. The Red Cross deserved and needed a lot of support for the work it was doing in the Binh Dinh province. In addition to its welfare work, it was running a fund in support of the surgical and medical teams. Dr Kennedy said.