Luang Prabang Hospital

Ensuring the Health of Lao Children and their Families

The Luang Prabang Provincial Hospital was built in 2003 for a population of 22,000. Luang Prabang now has a population of around 55,000 - and is growing larger every month. The hospital sees about 100 to 150 patients per day.

In terms of medical services to the community, the hospital is in dire need of assistance, and this is one of the areas where we will be concentrating our help in 2012.

Lao-Kids has already replaced some of the very old and worn-out linen, blankets and pillows - with one of the areas designated for these goods being the Emergency Room, where patients were often treated on gurneys covered only in a rubberized sheet. We have also provided blood pressure monitors and pulse oximeters for the surgical wards.

The orthopedic surgeon was using a very old drill purchased at the Chinese market for all of his work, so we replaced it with 2 new battery-operated (rechargeable) drills.

A small boy waiting for Emergency treatment - November 2011.

December 2011 - New sheets for the Emergency Room

December 2011 - delivery of 100 sheets, 100 pillow cases, 100 pillows, 30 blankets, 30 mattresses, 10 blood pressure monitors, 10 pulse oximeters, 2 drills for the orthopedic surgeon, 150 shrouds

New air-conditioner in the operating theatre

Shrouds and new sheets

We have replaced the small broken air-conditioner in the main operating theatre with a larger more effective one, serviced and repaired the air-conditioner in the operating theatre used for caesarian births and all air-conditioners in the recovery rooms.

Lao-Kids has also put in place a six-monthly service agreement with the air-conditioning company to ensure the efficiency of the air-conditioners at all times. We have also arranged regular maintenance of the generator which is needed as electricity often fails.

We were also intrigued when the hospital asked if we could buy them some bolts of cheap white fabric … until we found out that the poor cannot afford to buy anything to wrap their dead in to take home and cheap white fabric makes perfect shrouds! Thus we have been able to provide just a little bit of dignity to a devastating moment in people’s lives.

In 2012 we will also focus on the needs of the maternal and child health areas. There are only 14 beds in the maternity area, and on average there are 150 births per month, including 20 caesarians. Approximately 10 babies per month are born pre-term with weights of less than 2.5kg. Mothers are often very young and very small due to poor diet, so the risk of birth complications is high.

Again, these areas are in need of almost everything... mattresses, sheets, pillows, blankets, full-length surgical gloves, hospital robes and shoe covers for doctors assisting with deliveries, antibacterial fluid for hand washing, and low flow oxygen meters for the humidicribs of pre-term babies (to name a few of their needs...). They also need basic items such as caps for new-born babies, small diapers for pre-term babies, and baby clothes and blankets for the extremely poor mothers to take their babies home.

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