U.S. NGO Helps Improve Healthcare for Vietnam Ethnic Minorities

Atlantic Philanthropies, a U.S. non-governmental organization, has provided a financial assistance to implement a five-year project to improve healthcare for ethnic minorities in Vietnam through boosting medical education by 2013. The project, entitled Medical Education for Ethnic Minorities, aims to build seven labs and improve the curricula at seven medical universities and colleges in five northern mountainous and central highland provinces. Speaking at a meeting to start the project in Hanoi on Nov 30, Pathfinder International Vietnam (PIVN) Country Representative Ton Van Der Velden said that 75% of ethnic people in Vietnam live in remote areas and few had access to healthcare services. Up to 87% of women in Thai Nguyen and Dien Bien provinces in the north and Dak Lak, Lam Dong and Kon Tum in the central, where the project will be implemented, do not receive antenatal examinations and give birth at home. Vietnam’s Ministry of Health’s Department of Science and Training Deputy Head Tran Duc Thuan said that the project then would be extended to other universities in Vietnam.