Perfecting population and disease prevention policies to meet the requirements of people's health care and development.

Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan speaks. (Photo: DUY LINH)

Shifting the focus from “population and family planning” to “population and development”

On the afternoon of November 10, at the discussion session in the National Assembly hall on the draft Law on Population and the draft Law on Disease Prevention, Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan explained and clarified a number of contents that National Assembly deputies were interested in regarding the two draft Law on Population and the draft Law on Disease Prevention.

Explaining to the National Assembly, Minister Dao Hong Lan said that this Population Law has a very wide scope of regulation, because population is directly related to people in the entire country and is associated with most areas of social life.

During the process of drafting the law, the Ministry of Health reviewed about 60 laws and codes with provisions related to population and human rights such as the Law on Children, Law on the Elderly, Law on Youth, Law on Gender Equality, Labor Code, Law on Employment, Law on Urban and Rural Planning, Law on Residence, Law on Education, Law on Construction, Law on Agriculture, etc.

According to the Minister, the contents on population size, structure, distribution and quality have been expressed in many different legal documents. Therefore, this Population Law is built in the spirit of Resolution 21 of the Central Committee (2017), Conclusion 149 of the Politburo and Resolution 72 of the Central Committee, aiming to concretize the new orientation on population and development.

A fundamental change of the bill is the shift from the “population and family planning policy” approach to “population and development”, ensuring synchronous resolution of issues of population size, structure, distribution and quality in relation to socio-economic development.

"Therefore, the draft law contains relevant provisions that when formulating socio-economic development policies, population-related factors must be taken into account, with the goal of creating a legal basis for implementing population policies at a new level," the Minister of Health emphasized.

Scene of the National Assembly session on the afternoon of November 10. (Photo: DUY LINH)

The Minister said that the draft Population Law includes 6 main groups of contents: Maintaining replacement fertility; Reducing gender imbalance at birth; Adapting to population aging and population decline; Improving population quality; Communication, advocacy, and education on population; Conditions to ensure implementation.

With the spirit of "framework law", the draft clearly stipulates principles, while detailed contents on subjects, scope, and resources will be prescribed by the Government in accordance with each development stage.

Regarding resources, the Minister emphasized that this is an issue that needs to be considered both in the short and long term, because adapting to an aging population and improving population quality requires huge investment. International experience shows that many countries such as Japan and South Korea have allocated huge budgets for population policies, but still face many challenges. Therefore, Vietnam needs a comprehensive solution, mobilizing the participation of all ministries, sectors and localities, not just the health sector.

Institutionalize the mindset of "proactive disease prevention" and taking people as the center

Regarding the Law on Disease Prevention project, Minister Dao Hong Lan said that after the Covid-19 pandemic, perfecting laws related to disease prevention is extremely urgent.

Through review, there are up to 63 current laws with content related to disease prevention and health promotion, divided into three main groups: The group directly regulating the health sector, including 10 laws such as the Law on Protection of People's Health (1989) and other specialized laws.

Group of regulations related to health care, such as the Labor Code, Law on the Elderly, Law on the Disabled, Law on Children, Ordinance on preferential treatment for people with meritorious services, legal regulations on national defense, security, gender equality, prevention and control of domestic violence.

Group of regulations related to factors affecting health, such as Law on Environmental Protection, Law on Natural Resources, Land Law, Law on Physical Training and Sports, Law on Fire Prevention and Fighting...

According to the Minister, the Law on Disease Prevention institutionalizes the Party's viewpoint stated in Resolution 20 and Resolution 72 of the Politburo: Shifting the mindset from "treating diseases" to "proactively preventing diseases", taking people as the center and preventing diseases throughout life, preventing diseases early and from afar.

The draft law focuses on the following main contents: Prevention and control of infectious diseases; Prevention and control of non-communicable diseases; Prevention and control of mental health disorders; Control of risk factors and nutrition in disease prevention; Conditions to ensure disease prevention work.

Minister Dao Hong Lan emphasized that the work of protecting, caring for and improving people's health is not only the task of the health sector, but also the responsibility of the entire political system, of many levels and many sectors. Therefore, the Law on Disease Prevention is designed in the direction of a framework law, stipulating basic principles and policies, while specialized laws, decrees and circulars will specify it later.

The Minister stated that, with the spirit of openness and the highest responsibility, the Ministry of Health will fully absorb the opinions of National Assembly deputies, closely coordinate with National Assembly agencies to review, revise, and perfect the draft law, and submit it to the National Assembly for approval.

“We hope that National Assembly deputies will support the two drafts of the Population Law and the Disease Prevention Law to be passed at this session, creating an important legal basis for population work, care and protection of people's health in the new period,” Minister Dao Hong Lan emphasized.

TRUNG HUNG

Source: https://nhandan.vn/hoan-thien-chinh-sach-dan-so-va-phong-benh-dap-ung-yeu-cau-phat-trien-va-cham-soc-suc-khoe-nhan-dan-post922069.html