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VietNamNet Bridge – Suffering from anemia and brittle bone disease, Tuan Tu is 5 years old but he looks like a 2-years-old baby. The boy cannot walk and his head is getting bigger. Each month he lives for 18 days in hospital for three times of blood transfusions, which cost up to VND4-5 million ($200-250).
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| Tu has to drink water from a bottle and needs the care of an adult at
home. Tu’s father, Nguyen Van Dung, 43, said from his one-month old, Tu
has suffered from frequent seizures. Only his head develops while his
legs are small and being bent. The Central Children's Hospital in Hanoi determined that the child suffers from anemia, brittle bone disease, and needs monthly blood transfusions. In 2000, Dung’s second daughter died of similar diseases. |
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| The boy’s head is growing; his
eyes are always open, even during sleep. Dung said his family left
Thanh Hoa to Saigon many years ago. After the birth of their first
daughter Nguyen Thi Thuy Trang, the family moved to Da Nang. Dung worked
as a sewer dredging worker in the Da Nang airport – a hotspot of dioxin
contamination from the war. As they ate a lot of fish from this area,
the couple had two deformed children. |
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| Tuan Tu cannot stand. Thuy
Trang takes care of her brother after school. After the birth of Tuan
Tu, the couple decided to not have more babies because they are
suspected of being contaminated with dioxin. Dung said when he exposed
to the excavation of mud at the airport, he felt unpleasant smell but he
did not think that toxics of the war could have effects until now.
Currently, he has poor vision and a broken eardrum. |
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| Ms. Luu Thi Thu,
41, Tu’s mom, a sales staff at the Da Nang airport, said because Tuan Tu
is very weak, she rarely bathed him. She usually wiped the child with warm water. |
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| Whenever the blood flow is decreased, the boy gets seizures. |
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| The boy is confined in the four walls of his house. Occasionally, Tu goes out on a baby wheelchair. |
 The time the boy sees the crowded streets is when he goes to see doctors. Dung said the boy needs three times of blood transfusion a month. Each time he has to stay in the hospital for 6 days and needs 600 to 700 cc of blood. |
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| Being haunted by hospital, every time he sees
doctors, Tuan Tu cries with fear. He pointed over his body to show off
the needle traces left by blood transfusions. |
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| Dung said the cost
for blood transfusion is VND4-5 million per month. The boy recently
received social allowances for children with disabilities, but the cost
is too much for the family. Ms. Nguyen Thi Hien, Chairman of the Da Nang Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin said Tu has the clear expression of a child infected with AO. However, the boy is not listed as the beneficiary from the policy for Agent Orange victims because the current policy gives priority to people who participated in the war before 1975. |
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