Pioneering Change for Women’s Health in Vietnam
Hdop, 47, is an advocate of women's rights and modern medicine in Vietnam. She delivered all 5 of her children, including her 2 daughters, at a clinic.
“The fifth one – that was because my husband was drunk!” says Hdop, rocking with laughter and explaining they were using condoms for contraception at the time. “My husband had been drinking and he said, ‘We don’t need those now!’ That was number five.”
Hdop is an active member of the local women’s club where she tells young women not to listen to their husbands too much. “Because when the men drink too much, they will ask you to do things that are bad for your health. I tell the women to have regular health check-ups.”
She follows her own advice. When Hdop discovered she had a sexually transmitted infection, she got medicine for both herself and her husband who refused to accompany her to the clinic.
Hdop also tells the men in her community to listen to the radio to learn about sexually transmitted infections and HIV, and about ways to protect themselves and their wives. Her advice to her three sons is: “Try to make friends with one girl only.”
“I saw many of my friends who listened to their husbands and had to have their children at home. They are my age, but they are not as strong as me,” says Hdop.
Hdop’s neighbour, Xuan, a 50-year-old Kinh woman and mother of four boys, welcomes the improvements this part of the country has seen in the 28 years since she first gave birth in the mountains with the help of a traditional birth attendant.
“After the delivery, she gave me traditional herbal remedies, but that’s all. The last two I had at the clinic with medicine and better care,” Xuan says. “I think the first two children, it was up to God. God saved them. For the last two, the nurse helped me a lot.”
Xuan’s face turns grave as she talks about her home village in the mountains where many women and babies died from obstetric complications due to lack of professional care.
“My uncle’s wife died because she had a baby that would not come out. At that time, if there were complications in a delivery, people would make offerings – even big pigs – but still the mothers died,” Xuan says.
While the women who come to the rural clinics for check-ups appreciate the new services, including the outreach work done by the local health workers, staff at these clinics admit many more improvements are needed. They are overworked, they want more training, they want better equipment and supplies. Staff at the district level also say it will take time to get women to use their services.
“The health workers know the high risks, but how do we convince the women?” asks Hang, a midwife at the Vinh Thanh District Health Centre, some 80 kilometres from the provincial capital of Quy Nhon.
At the Vinh Thuan Commune clinic, some five kilometres away, 20-year-old Linh insists there is no need for convincing: once the services exist, she and other Ba Na women her age will use them. Linh is four-months pregnant with her first child, and at her first check-up has received folic acid and iron tablets. Like most expectant mothers, she is excied about the new life that is growing inside her.
“I feel very happy. I will have my baby here. Our generation, we prefer to have babies at the clinic,” Linh says smiling widely.