Office of the Historian

215. Memorandum From the Administrator of the Agency for International Development (Bell) to President Johnson1

Washington, December 29, 1965.

SUBJECT

  • Village Health Program—Laos

As one example of an activity that has been remarkably effective in reaching the rural population of Southeast Asia, you might be interested in some details of our Village Health Program in Laos.

Through a chain of AID supported dispensaries in the rural areas, medical assistance to refugees in northern Laos, and operation of emergency facilities in newly liberated areas, we provide badly needed medical care and instruction in hygiene to a broad cross section of the Laos population. We have found that members of a family will travel more than 30 miles for medicines for a sick person; thus our help and influence reaches far out into the countryside, well beyond the areas considered secure for USAID or for the Lao Government.

Some statistics may serve to define the scale of this program:

  • —Support is given to 140 hospitals and dispensaries.
  • —150,000 patients are served each month.
  • —In the last fiscal year, 268 medics were trained.

This is accomplished by an American staff of only 5 doctors and technicians. The facilities of Operation Brotherhood, a Philippine organization supported in Laos by AID, are used for training. The most expensive part of the project is the medicines and other commodity support, which costs $1.2 million out of the current fiscal year total of $1.6 million.

The most interesting and unusual part of the project is in the hill tribe areas of Laos. Most of the medical facilities throughout the refugee areas are of primitive construction and are built of such local materials as bamboo and thatch by the local people at little cost to the U.S. and Lao Governments.

Paramedical personnel to staff these facilities have been obtained by training local villagers who, in many instances, are totally illiterate. Yet medical care is given to over 250,000 refugees, and approximately 80 percent [Page 432] of the total war casualties in Laos are given either complete or preliminary treatment through this program.

A few photos are attached.2

David E. Bell
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Laos, Vol. XV, Memos. 4/65–1/66. No classification marking. A note on the source text indicates it was sent to Johnson at his ranch in Texas on December 31.↩
  2. Not reproduced.↩