Entry 2 by Robin

Someone asked me the other day about what it was like for poverty stricken children in the countryside. My job has taken me to tiny hamlets and precious, poor families struggling to feed their families every day.

I have always been struck by how many happy children I see in the countryside. Despite their poverty many children have a wonderful carefree life. However, for a child with heart disease, and for the family trying to care for them, there is no day that is carefree. The child struggles every day for energy and breath and to live a normal life. The parents struggle every day to find the money to provide the care and medicines the child needs. Heart disease is a horrible medical problem, but it is also a devastating financial problem.

We routinely see children in their teens who have yet to be diagnosed with heart disease. They have languished their entire lives in sickness, never knowing why they were so ill because the doctors who could tell them were hundreds of miles away. If they were sick, and the family had no transportation- no bicycle, no motorbike, no access to care they just stayed sick. They had no hope of ever changing their lives.

Because of this, VCF created a program of outreach clinics to go out to the provinces with the diagnostic equipment, the surgeons and the cardiologists to do free care, free diagnosis, free post op check ups. Children in the countryside no longer have to go to all the way to Ho Chi Minh City – sometimes a 10 to 12 hour trip.

Last year we gave 1535 children free care. This year we hope to serve over 3000. Our dream is to find the children early and fix their little hearts before they miss all the joys of childhood. We hope you will share our dream and help us to help these children.

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