President's update 11-29-08

Hi All,

I have spent the last week working with the CardioStart scout team. The team consists of two nurses and a professional photographer. In addition, a cardiac surgeon from California was assisting them. HSCV made arrangements for them to visit the 4 hospitals in Ha Noi that do heart surgery. The powers that be at all four of these hospitals met with them and all cooperated very well. The scout team will be leaving today. On their return they will meet with the appropriate people and determine if they want to pursue a program in Vietnam. I would be surprised if they do not. They have a very comprehensive program. They will usually start by shipping a container of medical supplies and equipment. The value will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The medical team of 20 to 25 doctors and nurses would follow, probably next fall. They would send additional teams every six months for up to 6 years. These teams would concentrate on teaching to elevate the competence of the medical personnel here. Facilitating this organization's work is something that fits HSCV's objectives very well. A tremendous amount of good will be done and the expense to us is minimal.

While most members of the scout team were discussing the details of their mission with the hospitals yesterday I traveled with the photographer to some of the communities were we work. He got some very good footage of children who need heart surgery and a couple whom HSCV has funded in receiving surgery. Although I have visited these areas many times in the past I never get used to the fact as to how very poor these people are. Our last visit of the day was to a four year old boy whose heart surgery HSCV funded two years ago. He is doing much better but does still have some issues that will probably call for additional treatment in the future. He lives with his mother and father and younger brother in a very humble one room house. The photographer wanted to film a success story, and this boy is one. He wanted the boy to run to show how much energy he now has. The boy was stubborn and did not want to do this. He was then asked what he favorite toy was. He responded cars. He was asked to show us his cars. He said he did not have any, only pictures of cars. He had a Ford calendar, which seemed to be a very precious thing to him. You just can't get used to this stuff.

That's all I have for now.

Chuck