Clinic + local team · IH
Someone beside the bed on the ward in Dong Hoi
Vietnamese hospitals assume a relative is present. Somebody fetches the medication, somebody helps to the bathroom, somebody is awake when the round comes through early. A traveller admitted in Dong Hoi usually has none of that, and the ward is not staffed to replace it.
So we arrange for one of our local nurses to stay with the patient: through the night where needed, through the morning round, and in the vehicle if the decision is to move. That last part is why this service matters here. A case that outgrows the provincial hospital goes south to Hue, or further again, and those hours of transfer are when somebody with no Vietnamese and no family nearby is most alone. If the admission itself is the emergency, please call 115 and go to the hospital door first — arranging a companion can come afterwards.
Areas we go to most
Phong Nha · Dong Hoi · Nhat Le
Night staff speak less English than the daytime doctors. Questions asked at two in the morning come back as gestures, and that gap is exactly where somebody who can interpret in both directions changes what happens.
Transfers run south down the coast road, and onward again if Da Nang is the destination. The nurse rides with the imaging and the drug list, because a handover given verbally at a receiving ward is a handover lost.
Insurers want a record they can read. The companion keeps a plain daily note in English — what was given, what the doctors said, what changed — and when the admission ends that note is usually all anyone has in writing.
Families in Europe or Australia want the call at their own waking hours. We agree a time and keep it, rather than ringing whenever there is news and leaving silence in between.
What is included
Public wards here expect a relative to handle feeding, washing and paperwork runs; the companion nurse takes that role when no relative is in the country
On ward rounds she interprets in both directions and writes down what the treating doctor actually said, not a summary of it
Cover is booked by shift, overnight included, with a written handover so the next nurse starts from where the last one stopped
Treatment stays with the hospital's own team — she observes, assists, flags deterioration to the duty staff at once, and alters nobody's orders
Relatives abroad get one update per shift at an hour that fits their own clock, and the discharge notes carry over if care continues back at the apartment
Questions we are asked
Questions we are asked
My partner was admitted here and I do not speak Vietnamese. What can you actually do?
Put a nurse at the bed. She interprets the round, asks the questions you would ask if you had the language, keeps a written record, and handles the small physical work the ward leaves to relatives. She does not take over treatment: the admitting doctors stay in charge, and we are deliberate about where that line sits.
Will someone travel with us if they transfer the patient to Hue?
Yes, and it is the part most worth having. The nurse travels with the patient, carries the films and the notes, hands over face to face at the receiving team, then stays until somebody there has the whole story. Where the family also wants cover after arrival, that becomes a separate arrangement in that city and we say so at the time rather than later.
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Someone beside the bed on the ward in Dong Hoi
Phong Nha · Dong Hoi · Nhat Le