Assisted by Dr. Tran Dinh Vinh, Dr. Kim Anh Thi Doan Vo planned to create a City Committee for MCH in Natural Disasters, to provide health care for women and children during Danang’s many storms.

1. The City

Danang is located roughly in the middle of Vietnam’s long coast line on the South China Sea. Like most of the country, it is backed by mountains that rise sharply to 1500 meters and more, with rivers that run swiftly into the sea. On a direct and open path from the typhoons that form around the Philippines and travel westward, Danang is subject to extremes of weather, with typhoons and floods coming with great regularity. In the 27 years 1981-2006, the city experienced 20 major typhoons and floods that have claimed 499 killed, 1,000 injured and have produced damages amounting to 9,359 billion Vietnamese Dong! The last great typhoon, in 2006, accounted for fully half the total costs in damages over the past 27 years, but only a tenth of the human casualties. This is a direct testimony to the increased capacities the country and the city have developed to deal with these major natural disasters.

Since 1985, when relative peace and calm returned to Vietnam, Danang has experienced steady growth of both population and its social and economic infrastructure. The population has almost doubled from 478,000 to 834,000. The government has placed a heavy emphasis on promoting education and health, and Danang has benefited greatly from this, especially in the area of primary and reproductive health care. Danang Hospital has a 175 bed department of OBGYN. There is also a major reproductive health center and 10 other OBGYN departments in district and private hospitals. It also has 56 primary and reproductive health care centers throughout the city. Numbers of clinics, doctors and nurses have all grown rapidly in the past decade. Its immunization program and expansion of safe birthing services have virtually eliminated newborn tetanus in the city.

To sustain these high quality services during natural disasters, the city and national governments have developed increasingly effective tactics. Weather forecasting is now part of an integrated Asian wide network with good cooperation among all countries of the region as well as assistance from Japan and the U.S. This gave the city a week’s notice of the great typhoon that hit the city in 2006. National and city organization enabled the city to mobilize to evacuate 10,000 households with 40,000 people to safe areas and to warn all fishing and cargo ships in the region to seek shelter. The city could account for the 46 newborns and their mothers and be sure they were in safe locations. Drugs, food, water and other necessary supplies had been stockpiled in relocation centers to be available when needed. In effect, the city and national governments have worked out highly effective strategies to sustain reproductive and maternal and child health services during these highly destructive natural disasters.

Typhoons typically are born east of the Philippines and track directly west across the China Sea to hit the coast of Vietnam. These storms are highly destructive in themselves, but they also often generate heavy flooding that adds to the damage. Danang, in the center of that coast is especially hard hit. One result is that the city has developed an increasingly effective disaster management organization that mobilizes all government agencies to deal with the disasters. One area left to be more systematically developed concerns the maintenance of maternal and child health care during such natural disasters.

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2. The Proposed Action Plan

Drs. Tran Dinh Vinh and Kim Anh Thi Doan Vo, developed an action plan to deal with this gap in disaster preparedness.

Danang residents are evacuated to safety

The objectives of their plan are two: to improve MCH care during natural disasters, and to help local authorities understand the urgent need for an MCH action plan, and to gain their cooperation with the health department to achieve its goals.

To do this they will create within the city’s disaster management organization a special City Committee for MCH in Natural Disasters. This will include members of the various relevant health agencies, the central city administration and the police and military, who always play a major role in managing natural disasters. Various members will be given specific tasks and responsibilities; a central Point of Contact (POC) will be identified in a location typically safe from heavy storms and flooding. This location will be posted along with phone numbers of committee members. An extensive checklist will be established of tasks that need to be accomplished to achieve a good state of readiness. This will include stockpiling of medicines and equipment needed for effective MCH care. As is now done with disasters, after each disaster the Committee will review actions to sustain a high level of preparedness.

Danang Action Plan Time Frame: October 2007 – December 2008