My time in Hanoi offered some lessons to take home, and some others to leave behind!
11 December 2006
Hanoi is a beautiful French colonial city with wide tree-lined boulevards and attractive streetscapes. The city is well landscaped with green areas which are graceful parks. There are few high-rise buildings and traffic is still manageable. Most of the locals are on bicycles and mopeds, sometimes up to three people including small children to each moped. Few of those on mopeds, or even motorbikes, wear helmets.
One of the aims of the Global Millennium Goals is to lower the maternal mortality rates in developing countries and I was on a visit with parliamentary colleagues from other European states to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) which is involved in many projects there. We were supposed to have two days there but due to a delayed flight from Bangkok we ended up with one very long day and two very pleasant nights.
Abortion is legal in Vietnam and since this is not considered a suitable method of family planning by UNFPA we went to see a pilot project they are pioneering to reduce teenage pregnancies. With enthusiastic support from local committee members in a semi-rural area near Hai Phong, what are called "Youth Friendly Corners" in local health centres where adolescents (these are those aged between 10 and 24 years, some are slower to mature than others) can get information on sexual and reproductive matters. They can come in person but contact by 'phone is even more popular. The pill, condoms and the morning-after pill are available free of charge.
The advice was very explicit and booklets with cartoon characters addressed issues such as child abuse. We went to a secondary school where the students put on a show devised by themselves. There were quizzes with questions on ways of transmission of HIV, types of contraception and so on. Parents and teachers were in the audience. There were song-and-dance acts depicting scenarios where teenagers are advised about safe sex - abstinence was mentioned, too, as a good way of avoiding pregnancy and STDs. These are international problems and I doubt if we in Ireland would address them so frankly, even though young people ask for such advice to be given more openly.
The Vietnamese have a quiet confidence and dignity. Their country is really on the move and UNFPA said they were also involved in clinics in the large factories which employ mainly girls from country areas. The work, often subcontracted from China, involved making shoes for Nike, those soft toys of doubtful charm one sees everywhere.
Haemorrhage is the main cause of maternal deaths in Vietnam -136 per 100,000 deliveries which is very high, and looking at the relative prosperity of Hanoi despite the poor migrant workers, this figure seems amazing. I was told it is about 40 to 50 there, but in the mountains and border areas it is 450, which is terrible. The blood bank in Vietnam needs development. At present donors are paid and transport is a serious problem. The Department of Foreign Affairs is setting up an Irish embassy in Hanoi and Irish Aid also has a presence.
The bus journey across the flat fertile land gave us plenty of time to talk to Thu and Tung from UNFPA, and Laura who is Finnish and who has been working with them for a few years. The population of Vietnam is 89 millions and increasing at the rate of one million per year. While the country is self sufficient in food at present much of the land is mountainous and even the hard working Vietnamese would find it hard to cultivate.
Into the bargain, the centre of this long country, as long as Italy, was destroyed by the Americans with Agent Orange during the Vietnamese war and it was not until 1997 that the Vietnamese were told of the chemicals which made up this toxic compound. Our French colleague had been in that area some years ago and she said the whole place is so damaged she did not hear bird song for hours.
The houses are such as I have never seen before. They are about five to six stories high, very narrow, with exotic turrets, domes, balconies and balustrades. Even out in the country where there is plenty of room they are built thus. They are painted in the colours the denizens of Clonakilty would envy - lilac, with red window sills and tiles, bright green with blue trimmings, orange with pink and so on. The people of West Cork might get some ideas to brighten up their towns even more.
While I was there I got some health tips, but I'm afraid they are only for men. The following potions are supposed to help "masculine health" I was told. "What does that mean?" I asked. "Helps the skeleton and you know . . ." I was told.
Bear's bile is the first. Bears are kept in cages and somehow bile is aspirated from the unfortunate animals' gall bladders and men drink this in wine and feel mighty frisky. No information on how the bear feels. There is a farm outside Hanoi to breed these bears.
When we had seen all these uncomfortable methods of animal transport my Icelandic friend and I thought we might found a Political Party for the animals such as has just won two seats in the Dutch Parliament.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
