Brussels (VNA) – Madame Ngo Phuong Ly, spouse of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee and President To Lam, visited and encouraged children undergoing treatment at Brussels’s Queen Fabiola Children’s University Hospital (HUDERF) on October 22 (local time), during their official visit to the European Union and Belgium.
Hospital managers briefed Madame Ly on its functions, size and pediatric care. HUDERF, part of the Brussels University Hospital (HUB) network, was founded in 1986 and named after Fabiola, then Belgium’s Queen. It is one of the country’s leading centres for comprehensive, advanced pediatric research and treatment.
She praised the hospital’s approach after hearing from doctors and seeing it firsthand, noting that nurturing children’s emotional well-being and psychological resilience is treated as no less important than medical care.
For children with autism, HUDERF prioritises early intervention. Those aged 18 months to 4 years receive intensive play-based therapy under the Early Start Denver Model. The hospital also runs a day treatment unit for parents and young children, and a therapeutic nursery for children aged two and a half to six years old.
The Robert Dubois School, run by the city of Brussels, operates inside the hospital and serves patients aged two and a half to 21 years old. It works closely with the therapeutic nursery so that education and treatment proceed in parallel, meaning hospital stays don’t interrupt schooling.
Families are treated as part of the care. A residence for parents, about 50m from the main entrance, lets them stay close to their children. Doctors and staff also coach parents on how to support their kids, so no child goes through treatment alone.
At a subsequent working session, Prof. Véronique Delvenne, Head of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at HUB, said the hospital has run two three-year cooperation programmes with Vietnam since 2022. Hue Central Hospital is the main partner, with the National Children’s Hospital also joining.
The partnership helped the Pediatrics Centre at Hue Central Hospital set up an autism unit with dedicated space for tailored early intervention. The hospital also opened an inpatient unit for adolescents, led by a psychiatrist trained in Brussels. Psychoeducation courses and training gave parents added skills to support their children. Two Vietnamese healthcare workers are currently interning at HUDERF.
The Vietnamese guest said the visit gives her a better understanding of Belgium’s experience in pediatric health care, a priority area for Vietnam.
She said HUDERF’s model deserves wider adoption and acknowledged the practical results of its work with Vietnamese partners. She expressed her hope that the hospital and its Belgian partners will keep expanding cooperation with Vietnamese healthcare facilities, so more children receive care grounded in both professional expertise and compassion./.
