Director of the Hanoi-based Hospital K Prof. Dr Tran Van Thuan, who is also VYPA Chairman, said founded on June 28, 2009, the association now has branches in 62 provinces and cities with 82,600 members, becoming one of the biggest organisations of the health sector.
Over the last 10 years, the VYPA has offered free check-ups and medicine and presented gifts to more than 8 million people. It has provided training in first aid skills for over 200,000 kindergarten and primary school teachers, conducted free eye surgeries for 10,000 old people with disadvantages, and received 10 million donated blood units. It has also organised activities to encourage handwashing with soap to prevent the hand-foot-and-mouth disease, involving about 1.5 million children.
The association has also launched many practical movements and programmes to realise the Party and Government’s resolutions on healthcare, Thuan noted.
Applauding the VYPA’s contributions, Deputy PM Binh highlighted advantages as well as difficulties facing the health sector, particularly the surge of non-communicable disease risks. He asked the association to effectively carry out the Healthy Vietnam Programme recently launched by PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
He also called on young physicians to make stronger efforts to swiftly adapt to scientific-technological advances in Industry 4.0, enhance grassroots healthcare, increase communications to raise public awareness of health problems, early diagnosis and physical activities, and meet people’s demand for healthcare.
At the event, the “Walk for your health” competition was launched. It is part of a series of “Walk the Talk” activities around the world initiated by the World Health Organisation.
