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They had begun eating when workers found their rice was
stale, smelly and curdled, said To Kim Hang at the general hospital of
the province’s Trang Bom District, not far from Ho Chi Minh City.
“The company
managers checked and then told us that the rice was rotten and inedible,”
Hang said.
She said workers
were then told to eat instant noodles but the noodles were also bad.
Thirty minutes
later, more than 520 workers started to suffer from stomachache, vomiting
and diarrhea right at the lunch tables of the Trang Bom District-based
shoe maker.
Hoang Van Hoa,
director of Trang Bom General Hospital that admitted more than 400
workers, said all doctors and nurses at hand were summoned to take care
of the workers, give medicines to less critical people and send them
home.
“But as of Friday
evening, 240 workers were still in the hospital,” Hoa said.
In Bien Hoa Town,
the General Hospital in Thong Nhat Area received 124 workers, five of
them pregnant women who also had breathing difficulties.
The hospital had
discharged 70 workers by the evening.
One worker, who
didn’t want to be named, said the company has people to cook for its
13,000 employees, and bad quality meals “are an old story.
“The workers have
eaten musty rice and spoiled fish many times. And we’ve informed the
company managers every time but the situation didn’t change.”
Provincial and
district authorities have taken food and water samples from the company
to investigate the food poisoning.
Reported by Hoang
Tuan
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