REI will continue work in Laos for three more years!

REI’s CEO reports on his second around the world adventure, during which a 3-year agreement was signed with officials in Laos. Read about this exciting step forward in his own words below.

Vientiane, Laos – On Friday, November 13, 2010, following 15 months of negotiation, REI President and CEO Roderick Beidler and Hospital Director Associate Professor Dr. Vanliem Bouaravong signed a new 3-year agreement between REI and Mittaphab (“Friendship”) Hospital in Vientiane. Besides hospital leaders, doctors, and nurses, present at the signing ceremony were representatives from the Lao Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, members of the REI team present to conduct training, and members of the local print and electronic media.

In his signing remarks, Beidler described REI’s role in humanitarian development. “REI’s method of helping is a simple one. Rather than giving people rice, which feeds them for only a day, REI teaches people to grow rice so they eat for a lifetime. Some humanitarian organizations feed the hungry or provide assistance in times of disaster. Others drill wells or build buildings. That is all necessary and important. But REI’s role is to “build people to build nations.” We help people to help themselves by increasing the capacity of a nation’s most valuable resource?its human resource. Building people to build nations is a long, and often slow, process. We consider this new MOU with Mittaphab Hospital to be part of the beginning. We hope to work with the Lao people for many more years in order to help you achieve the same level of medical knowledge and skill as your Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) neighbors.”

The new agreement, valued at approximately $676,000 over the 3-year period, extends the Pediatric Medical Training and English Language Training that REI has conducted at the hospital since mid-2007. However, under the terms of the agreement, REI will begin a Surgical Residency program under the guidance of American surgeon and full-time REI staff member, Dr. Craig Kent, of Georgia. The Surgical Residency program will be just the second of its kind in the history of medicine in Laos, and the first since a similar program conducted by the French government concluded in 2005. Mittaphab Hospital contains the nation’s only trauma center, and may quickly become the center of training for surgeons for the entire country.

The agreement also calls for REI to continue training in Executive Leadership and Management; to conduct thorough assessments of the hospital’s other major programs including OB/GYN, Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases, Hemodialysis, and Outpatient Clinical Care; to bring 2-4 of the most highly qualified Lao medical professionals to the US for international fellowships; and to outfit a new “21st Century Classroom” (valued at $15,000) in the hospital’s yet-to-open 40,000 sq ft education wing.

Prior to signing the agreement, a 7-member REI team conducted four days of training in Basic and Advanced Neonatal Resuscitation, and performed an initial assessment of the Hospital’s Emergency Services Department. The neonatal resuscitation training was conducted under the instruction of Dr. James Scott, of Calhoun, Georgia, a nationally certified instructor in neonatal resuscitation, and Dr. Jackie Ho, Chief of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Penang, Malaysia. The assessment of the Emergency Services Department was conducted by Dr. Jacques Pye, of the Fort Gordon Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia.

Although the agreement is between REI and Mittaphab Hospital, since early 2010 nearly half of the doctors, nurses, and management team members trained by REI, Inc. have been representatives from Vientiane’s four other hospitals, drawn by the Hospital’s growing reputation as a training hospital because of the high quality training delivered by REI staff and professional volunteers. At the conclusion of the four days of training in Neonatal Resuscitation, REI team leader Dr. Jackie Ho assembled representatives of the five hospitals in attendance to discuss the possible formation of a planning committee to take the program national by “training trainers” who will pass on their newly acquired knowledge and skill to the regional and provincial hospitals throughout the country.