Asians Help Asians

"Come one, come all," the big sign read. "Free medical clinic. Open day and night." Inside the clinic, a former warehouse in a newly liberated village of South Viet Nam, a group of Filipino doctors were performing a Caesarean section on a Vietnamese peasant woman. Their operating table was covered with a G.I. blanket and a strip of white cotton cloth torn from a CARE package; their patient was secured by wires nailed to the side of the table and lifted above her body by wedges of C-ration cans. Their light consisted of one electric bulb and half a dozen flashlights trained upon the incision by Filipino nurses. One nurse was assigned to keep off the insects that swarmed around the light bulb. Four hours after the operation began, a Vietnamese baby boy was born.

This was one of about 100,000 "treatments" given by Filipino doctors since they first came to help the Vietnamese last fall. In a country where the French colonials only got around to training 150 Vietnamese doctors, the Filipinos are making headway with insufficient equipment against such diseases as smallpox, malaria and beriberi. Fifty-eight Filipino volunteers--doctors, dentists, nurses and social workers--are doing what they can. "It is an inspiring thing." said Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in his address to the U.S. last week, "to see the Philippine people, who only lately achieved their own independence, now turning to help the most recent addition to the ranks of the free nations."

Drugs & Dedication. The idea first came to Oscar J. Arellano, 38, a Manila architect who witnessed the chaos in Saigon last summer, when hundreds of thousands of refugees fled down from the Communist north. Arellano thought Filipino doctors and nurses might like to help out, so he put it up to the Manila headquarters of the Philippine Junior Chamber of Commerce. "Publicity stunt," argued some Manila skeptics, but last October the first seven Filipino doctors and three Filipino nurses set out for South Viet Nam. Their average age was 25. The Filipinos first set up straw-hut clinics in eight new villages (pop. 95,000) that the refugees were creating out of the jungle. They won respect with their drugs and their dedication. Yet the best assets of the Filipinos were their own likable dispositions. "The people need laughter," the Filipinos decided, so they chipped in their savings and gave them parties and dances.

Pride & Appreciation. Back home in Manila, "Operation Brotherhood" increasingly caught the national fancy. "For a long time we Filipinos have been receiving help from others, mostly the United States," said a Manila librarian. "I think it's a good thing we're able to help others now." The Filipinos began talking of 3,350,000 treatments in 1955, a training program for more Vietnamese nurses, and village first-aid squads. The International Junior Chamber of Commerce has adopted the project, and Jaycees from other Asian countries want to join in.

"This is not just medicine for the body that you offer, but medicine for the spirit," said South Viet Nam's Premier Diem. "We thought we were alone in Viet Nam. Now we see that we're not." Happily, Oscar Arellano responded: "By golly, it's working!"

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