Healthcare for the poor is one of the biggest concerns of provincial leadership. Besides good implementation of the State policies, Binh Duong also enhanced health care activities, helping the poor to access health services. Free medical examination and medicines In recent years, people in rural and remote areas in the province have been familiar with the image of doctors, who voluntarily gave medical examination and free medicines to poor patients. At People's Committee of Thanh An Commune (Dau Tieng District), even though it was 6:45 am, hundreds of poor people and patient were present, waited for medical team and doctors of Provincial General Hospital for medical examination and free medicines. The team also rushed over and started their work soon. Tran Thi Bai, a resident of Thanh An commune, said: “I have had a cough, fever, persistent eye pain. I was so happy when these doctors came”. Bui Dinh Dan, a resident of Thanh An, said: “I have had back pain and aches all over my body for months but I had no time to go to the hospital.Now doctors came here to examine our health for free”. Or Nguyen Thanh Hung, who had a severe cough, walked to the table of doctors and whispered: "I have chest tightness, difficulty breathing, can not sleep in many nights, did not know what illness I had”... Doctors examine health and give free medicine to the poor. Patients were examined, diagnosed diseases, given medicines and careful and meticulous advices. Dr. Huynh Tran Duong Giang, a member of the team, said: “Voluntary activities helping poor patients are to raise awareness and dedications of doctors to patients, help young doctors improve their skills”. The heart and voluntary spirit of doctors are immense, and many poor people still look forward to voluntary doctor groups to provide counseling, medical examination and free medicines for the poor. Dau Tieng district still has now 630 poor households. In the last year, the district mobilized all social resources to organize many medical examinations and give free medicine to poor people in difficult circumstances with a total cost of more than VND 180 million. Besides, the district also enhanced propagation and called for people to strictly implement the population - family planning policy, ensuring a reasonable replacement fertility rate, helping families to get good conditions of health care. Many support policies To carry out the healthcare policy for poor and near-poor households in the province, in recent years, Binh Duong has done quite well this task. In fact, the poor and near poor often suffer from serious and dangerous diseases such as: Cancer, hemodialysis, so the treatment cost is very expensive. During the year, Department of Health collaborated with departments and mass organizations to support a part of medical examination and treatment expenses according to Decision 3393/QD-UBND dated 30 Dec 2017 of Provincial People's Committee.According to this, the budget for support in 2018 for 408 records with a total expenditure of more than VND 1.6 billion. In addition, Department of Health actively joined hands with other sectors to examine and dispense medicines for 15,852 turns of poor people with a total budget of over VND 3.1 billion, and medical examination and treatment for 3,518 turns of near poor patients, total cost of VND 2.5 billion. In order to create favorable conditions for the poor to receive medical examination and treatment, access health care services, districts, towns and cities collaborated with functional agencies to issue 19,548 health insurance cards for poor, near poor people with a total budget of over VND 14.6 billion. Assessing healthcare activities for the poor, Le Minh Quoc Cuong, Director of Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said: “In recent years, primary health care activities for the poor were widely launched across the province with very encouraging results. In particular, humanitarian medical examination and treatment activities for disadvantaged people in the province were implemented extensively by the province, attracting many organizations and enterprises to participate in the goal of "Enhancing people health and joining hands with the health sector in health care for the community”. Thousands of poor, near poor people, and people, who have escaped from poverty, in the province got free medical examination and treatment, health counseling and free medicine distribution; thereby, to help the poor get the best access to health services”. Reported by Kim Ha – Translated by Ngoc Huynh 
Healthcare for poor people
