Students race to appeal for better health services for disadvantaged children

More than 200 students from seven colleges of Hue University ran around the citadel city of Hue to appeal for join efforts by the government and communities to reduce the death of children caused by preventable diseases and to improve health services for disadvantaged children in remote and ethnic minority communities.

This is an annual event “Child Survival Race” by Save the Children as part of its Children’s Everyone Campaign which aims to reduce the mortality rate by children under 5 by 2/3 by 2015.

Viet Nam has made a tremendous progress in improvement of child mortality in the last decade. The mortality rate of children under five was dropped from 58/1000 in 1990 to 23/1000 in 2013 while the infant mortality rate decreased by four times to 15.3/1000 last year.

Despite the achievement, challenges remain in regard of disparity and for those left behind. The access to quality health service is still limited for ethnic minorities, for families in remote rural areas and migrant children. The infant and under-five mortality rates in mountainous areas are doubled and tripled of those in the lowlands.

By joining the race, the students disseminated messages that emphasized the rights of child survival, the need to invest in health worker training, in health facilities and to make the availability of trained midwives and doctors for poorer communities and for those in remote rural and mountainous areas.

“The Government of Vietnam has noted the disparities of children health indicators between regions and groups of population. The Ministry of Health has approved an action plan in 2010-2015 to overcome the problem. However, we should work closely with UN and other international organisations to tackle it”, said Phan Thi Ninh, the Deputy Head of Maternal and Child Care Department from the Ministry of Health.

The students were racing with distance of 3.7km for female and 5.5km for male. Both female and male winners are from the College of Physics who are Nguyen Viet Tai and Nguyen Thi Yen Nhi at  17’52s68 and 19’37s60 respectively.

“I'm very pleased and happy to take part in this race and especially, I was on the first landing.
After this race, I will tell everyone that participating in this tournament is very happy; I will carry the message of child health protection to everyone”, said Nguyen Thi Yen Nhi.

“The race gives everyone much more aware of the importance of children”, said Nguyen Viet Tai.

“If this tournament is organized next year, I will continue to participate in and encourage everyone to participate. I want Race for Child Survival will be able to expand more, invite the high schools to participate in to bring the meaningful messages to many more people”.