A village health fund saves Ouan

Huay Chanh village is located along the Noy riverside in in Viengkham District, surrounded by mountains. With the arrival of the cold season, the people need to start fires in front of their houses to stay warm.

The way of life for this community is farming.

The village is far from a health centre- the closest one is about 19km away. There is also a lack of transportation between the town and village.

Ouan, lives here with her 4 siblings and her parents. Her parents are rice farmers, but they rarely harvest enough to last an entire year. They often search the forest for bamboo shoots and animals to hunt, which they sell to earn money.

When Ouan, 11, grade 3, became sick earlier this year, her family immediately gave the traditional offerings to the temple: chicken, eggs, and rice. The offering was meant to ask for forgiveness for whatever the family had done to cause her to become sick.

“When my daughter was sick, she was absent from school almost 2 months and it is affected her studies. She failed the final examination and finally had to drop out of school because of her illness,” says Ouan’s father Sen, 42.

It seemed that Ouan could not be healed.

Her parents did not have enough money to take her to the health center or hospital.

The Village Health Fund

In 2009, World Vision began visiting Ouan’s village to monitor the child sponsorship programme and also create awareness about the health fund. The fund has money available to borrow for families facing serious health emergencies with a low interest rate. Along with the fund, they also provide a village medicine-cabinet so that when people are not well, they have basic medicines availablein their village.

Ouan’s parent’s borrowed 500,000 kip (about USD $62) from the health fund to take Ouan to the health center.

The village committee and a health worker recommended that she be transferred to the town hospital, 19kms away. 

World Vision helped the family utilize the emergency health care fund as they did not have enough money to pay for transportation to the hospital, for accommodation, or food.

At the district hospital, the doctors were alarmed by Ouan’s condition. The health team ran tests and discovered that Ouan had bowel obstruction and needed an operation.

After a few days of recovery in the hospital, Ouan was much better, and the doctors allowed her to return to her village.

“My first daughter passed away when she was only 6 months old because of malaria. We didn't know about going to the hospital or health center for treatment. I am still very sad that I lost my first lovely daughter,” says Ouan’s father.

Ouan Goes Home

After returning home, Ouan was sad because she could not return to school right away, because her body was still recovering from the surgery. When she tried to walk slowly to school, the teacher had to stop her because she was worried about her health.

“I could not take the final examination with my friends because of my sickness. And this year, I have to continue to study in the same grade 4 while my friend are in grade 5 now."

“My dream for the future is I would like to become a doctor so that I can cure ill people in my village, especially people who get sick and live far from a hospital like me,” said Ouan.

“Since we’ve had the health fund that pays for the medical assistance in our village, many things have changed. This fund is available to every family and ready to support the health emergencies of children. I would like to say thank you to the government and World Vision who provided this fund for our children,” said the vice village chief, Thidsome Thaphachanh.