Saigon's Pediatric Hospital Number 2 was created after 1975 from Grall, one of Vietnam's preeminent hospitals. Grall Hospital had been staffed by both French and Vietnamese medical personnel and was considered a tertiary hospital where complex, hopeless cases were referred. It was modern by Western standards, with up-to-date treatment techniques, and patients ranging from the rich and famous to the poor. On a December day in 1994, Ms. Thu-Thuy visited the hospital and gave the following account:
"After three hours of walking on aching legs, I have yet to cover all the necessary grounds. This is partly because of the large areas covered by hospital grounds and partly of the peculiar architecture wherein all the different wards are separated by large fields of grass. The grass had grown in a "healthy" manner to a tall height due to lack of maintenance. This hospital has 700 beds, staffed by 630 health care workers, with 110 doctors and 280 nurses, capable of handling 1,300 patients in its clinic each day.
I had heard before coming that this hospital had been downgraded because of normal aging of the buildings over the years. Walking around wards B and H, I smelled the nauseating aroma of urine. Long series of deep cracks ran along the walls. Metal staircases rotted and crumbled, shaking with every step. At least four staircases had been condemned as they had collapsed completely. A building was completely closed with mildewed walls full of exposed bricks.
Next to this was a darkened and filthy restroom, evidently in use with a sign warning of slippery floors. Carefully, I entered the restroom. In a puddle of water with floating human excrement, a large rat lazily eyed me from a dark corner. Panicking, I stepped out in a hurry, with chills down my spine. A young man, upon seeing the horrified expression on my face, laughed because, as it turned out, there were more scary incidents. He told me how the ceiling had collapsed on a previous admission to the hospital for his child, raining dirt and bricks onto the patients' beds.
According to the nurses, that wasn't the first time such a thing had occurred. The children's beds were almost completely peeled of paint, each with only a thin mattress and a bamboo mat. The mats were very useful in this hospital, doubling as a bed cover and a floor cover where people ate meals and relaxed in the breeze. The cost at the cheaper wards was 3,000 dong a day (one dollar equals 11,000 dong; average monthly income per head in VN is $15, in Saigon $50), whereas the costlier wards can run to 20,000 dong and up a day.
These latter wards have better upkeep and are cleaner. When asked why the hospital's infrastructure had deteriorated to such a point that it could literally collapse any time, a senior administrator said that although suggestions had been submitted to higher authorities, no decisions have been made. And they are still waiting.
All the people living in Saigon, especially the older ones, know the current Pediatric Hospital Number 2 is a successor to the Grall Hospital, which before 1975, was a clean and most modern hospital in South Vietnam, known for its many specialties and modern treatment techniques, clearly a prominent hospital. After only 20 years under the management of the socialist communist government, it had deteriorated from a preeminent institution into a second-rate hospital, in danger of physically collapsing. This is something no one can imagine. The ironic thing is that instead of maintaining and upgrading the original buildings, a new treatment center was built in front of the old hospital which charges 50,000 to 100,000 dong a day."
The current leaders and government officials are very good at talking and promising everything from maintaining the health of the people to taking care of the children, which are the young seeds of the nation, etc., etc. But in reality, their rhetoric does not go hand in hand with their actions, which demonstrate their total lack of concern. If they were really concerned, the 200 million dollars earmarked for the celebration marking the 20th anniversary of the communist victory on April 30, 1975 would have been used instead in the critical task of maintaining pediatric hospitals. Until the communist socialist government and the old, conservative leaders are replaced, Vietnam will continue to be a poor, tattered country.
This brief article, written by a reporter working for a party newspaper, goes a long way in exposing the true face of socialism behind the rhetoric and propaganda from the communist government. The rotting, collapsing hospital is a metaphor for the whole country itself as the author clearly intended to convey. The reader cannot help but wonder whether the business community, in its haste to invest in a "gold mine," will heed the message and warnings found in such exposes. Pediatric Hospital Number 2 and like situations are common in Vietnam, all the while the communist leaders try to give an impression of real social reforms to allay the fears of foreign investors.
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