Sangthong Primary Health Care Project

The Mennonite Central Committee began work in Laos in 1975. Together with the Quaker Service, MCC was the first western organisation permitted to work here, because of MCCs long history of peacemaking and non-violence. One of the early projects of MCC was work in the north with victims of ‘bombies,’ or anti-personel bombs which were dropped by the millions on the Lao countryside, to this day, previously unexploded bombies kill dozens of people each year. PBS ran a documentary on bombies and on the work of MCC in Laos (I think the title was ‘Bombies’).
Since that time, MCC has expanded their work to agriculture, health, education, handicrafts, etc.
Bread for the World (actually, the German arm Brot fur de Weld) funded MCC to begin the Sangthong Primary Health Care Project in Sangthong District. SPHCP works through the entire health system for the district though, at present, the focus is on the community health which occurs outside of the hospital. For many people in rural Laos, access to the hospital, particularly in times of emergency, is an impossibility. Unpaved roads (which, not infrequently are impassable during the rainy season), lack of vehicles, remote locations, and lack of funding conspire to force people to seek health care closer to home, or to go without it. Consequently, the project has focused on the training of Community Health Volunteers and Traditional Birth Attendents, in addition to village revolving drug funds and periodic visits by health staff from the hospital to the more remote villages.
It was this project which Heidi began work with in the summer of 2005. Although she was asked to work as a public health avisor, her work has been rather more managerial than simple advising. Working together with one Lao co-worker, Manisone, who is also an employee of MCC, they jointly manage the project and the 20 or so staff who work for the hospital. At the village level, there are approximately 80 village health volunteers, and an equal number of widwives (tradition birth attendents).
Over the course of this blog we intend to write more about various aspects of this work. At the top are pictures from International AIDS Day activities, and from volunteer and staff trainings.