Lao Woman Builds Northern Laos’ First Pediatric ICU, Wins Regional Award

Bounloth Sodaluck grew up watching rural families in Xayaboury Province struggle to find medical care for their children. Now, decades later, she leads the only Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in northern Laos and has just become the first Lao national to win the Women of the Future Southeast Asia Award in the Professions category.

“This award is for the hospital and our team, who are dedicated to saving kids’ lives,” she said.

It is International Women’s Day, and if there is a story worth telling today in Laos, it is probably hers.

Dr. Pom, as she is known, did not come from a family of doctors or a city with good hospitals. After finishing high school in Xayaboury, she earned a place at the University of Health Sciences in Vientiane. Her focus sharpened during clinical rotations at Lao Friends Hospital for Children in Luang Prabang, where she noticed something that would later mark her entire career.

“Children are not good at telling us how they feel, so we need to pay attention,” she says.

She never left.

This year, LFHC marked its 11th anniversary, and Dr. Pom marked it by leading the team that built the hospital’s first PICU, a unit that now handles the region’s most critically ill children, many arriving from remote provinces with few other options.

The hospital has operated for eleven years on entirely private funding, offering completely free care to every child who comes through its doors.

Beyond the ward, Dr. Pom works as Medical Education Director, training junior Lao doctors and interns with skills she developed through additional study in Vientiane and Thailand.

“If I can give my students the tools and confidence to treat sick children, my impact will multiply,” she says.

Women in Laos have been moving into medicine, law, and public life for years now, often without much noise about it.

But the path is rarely straightforward, especially for women from rural areas, where getting to university at all can depend on factors that have nothing to do with ability.

source: https://laotiantimes.com/2026/03/08/lao-woman-builds-northern-laos-first-pediatric-icu-wins-regional-award/