NGO Profile: Heart to Heart International

Heart to Heart International
Airlifts Medical Supplies to Vietnam

On February 20, 2001, a cargo plane carrying a multi-million dollar shipment of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies touched down in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The airlift was part of a Heart to Heart International project, the humanitarian groups' second mission to Vietnam. (In April 1995, Heart to Heart and another team of volunteer delegates delivered medicines and supplies to 11 different hospitals and clinics throughout Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City). Heart to Heart executed the 2001 airlift with its "Physicians With Heart" partners at the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and the AAFP Foundation.

A delegation of 53 medical professionals, business leaders, and other volunteers delivered the medicines to hospitals and clinics located in Hanoi, Thai Nguyen, Hai Phung, Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Phuoc and Can Tho. Medical professionals met with physicians at recipient sites to provide instruction and training. In addition, doctors travelling with the delegation conducted medical symposia on the concept of family practice to medical students in Hanoi, Thai Nguyen, Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho. This specialty is growing in popularity throughout the country and the Ministry of Health is hopeful that the 4,000 physicians in Vietnam who work at the most basic level of healthcare will be trained through this program over the next several years.

According to Marsha Sailors, Communications Coordinator for the organization, "Heart to Heart is grateful for the opportunity to once again return to Vietnam and offer help and healing to people who are still in great need. Although the medicines and education delivered by the volunteer delegation will indeed make a lasting impact on the national healthcare system in Vietnam, the greatest healing occurred as individuals from the two nations, who just 25 years ago were at war, reached out to each other in friendship and connected person to person and heart to heart."

For more information contact:
Marsha Sailors, Communications Coordinator
Heart to Heart International
401 S. Clairborne, Suite 302
Olathe, KS 66062
Ph: 913-764-5200
Fax: 913-764-0809
email: msailors@hearttoheart.org

J.V. Morsch, volunteer delegate and father of Heart to Heart's president and founder, helps a Vietnamese man living in a leper colony deliver supplies brought by the delegation to his village.