At the event (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – A symposium was held in Hanoi on July 7 to launch a programme to improve the health of Vietnamese migrants.
The event was co-hosted by the Vietnamese Health Ministry’s General Officefor Population and Family Planning, the International Organisation forMigration (IOM) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
According to the Foreign Ministry’s Consular Department, nearly 6 millionVietnamese went abroad in 2016, mostly those aged 20-39 for study and working.
Deputy General Director of the Office for Population and Family Planning Pham Vu Hoang cited the populationand housing census in 2019 as saying that Vietnam had a 96.2 million population, ranking thirdin ASEAN and 15th globally. In the past five years, migrants agedmore than five accounted for 7.3 percent, or about 6.4 million people, mostly inurban areas.
Vietnam is in the period of golden population with 65.4 million in the workingage of 15-64, equivalent to 68 percent of the total.
Last year, the Health Ministry partnered with the IOM and the WHO to conduct astudy on the health of Vietnamese migrants. As a result, several barriers werefound to impact their health, including asynchronous implementation of policiesat the grassroots level.
The study highlighted the need to set up a working group for the health ofmigrants to offer technical assistance in the building and implementation of healthpolicies, models and projects, Hoang said.
He added that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, migrants also faced the risk of losing jobs,salary reduction and health-related issues.
Former Director of the National Economics University’s Institute of Populationand Social Issues Nguyen Dinh Cu said a programme to improve the health ofmigrants will make it easier for Vietnam to enhance its globalintegration capacity, including cooperating with countries in the region and the worldin the field.
Participants suggested allocating resources for vulnerable groups and those inneed when it comes to policy making./.
