VietNamNet Bridge – "You've given me a new life. I'll never forget what you've done for me. Thanks to you my future will be a healthy one," wrote Luong Thi Chung, a Tay ethnic girl from the northern province of Thai Nguyen, in an email to doctor Judith Baumhauer from the US.

Last year Dr Baumhauer, a volunteer surgeon, performed an above-knee amputation on Chung, 26, who underwent previous, but unsuccessful surgeries for severe knee fractures, infection and nerve injuries.

"With all the scarring from previous operations, it was a complicated surgery," said Dr Baumhauer, "but we managed to enable her to wear a prosthetic limb which will improve the quality of her life drastically."

Seven weeks on from her successful surgery, Dr Baumhauer received a photo of the young woman via email showing her standing on her new prosthetic leg, provided by the Prosthetics Outreach Foundation.

Chung, amongst hundreds of patients with lower extremity problems and clubfeet, received free surgery as part of a project implemented by the Prosthetic Outreach Foundation (POF), the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) and the Ha Noi-based Viet Duc Hospital.

During a trip to Viet Nam this year, US surgical teams plan to perform surgery on 80 patients, mostly children from Ha Noi, Dien Bien Phu, Thai Nguyen and Hai Phong, until June 10, increasing the total number of successful surgeries over the past decade to 700, said Zan Lofgren, executive director of POF and AOFAS.

"Apart from those who've undergone free surgery, we've treated an additional 2,000 patients at clinics in northern and central provinces and cities including Nghe An and Thanh Hoa," she said.

Zan said that AOFAS would continue running its project in order to help reduce the number of patients suffering from deformities and clubfeet in Viet Nam.

More than 500 local doctors met with US counterparts at a seminar held in Ha Noi last weekend in order to discuss ways in which to assist patients with deformities and clubfeet.

During the seminar local medical workers were lectured on and introduced to surgical techniques based on dealing with knee fractures, the use of metal plates in broken bones, ankle fractures in diabetes patients and the use of arthroscopic surgery in treating ankle fractures.

Dr Ngo Toan, head of the Viet Duc Hospital's Orthopaedic-Trauma Department and vice president of the Viet Nam Orthopaedic Association, said that he welcomed the assistance of US surgeons.

"By using Minimal Invasive Surgery, incisions are perfectly centred over hip joints and are quite small compared to the large and painful incisions used during hip replacement surgery in the past which caused a lot of blood loss and a difficult and extended recovery period," said Toan.

Toan added that, "Vietnamese orthopaedic surgeons followed up on patients after AOFAS surgeons had left, reporting that all are in good health and doing well."

Clubfeet (Talipes Equinovarus) is a congenital condition, present from birth, which causes feet to bend progressively inwards and downwards as a child grows older.

Clubfeet occur in 1-3 babies out of every 1,000 born worldwide and, if left untreated, could cause severe deformity in one or both feet, resulting in a painful and crippling lifelong disability.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News