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Xinhuanet via "Our
country has been actively issuing policies to fully tap experience and
expertise of the elderly," an official of the Vietnam Association of
the Elderly told Xinhua on Tuesday. The policies
include establishing centers for retired state employees, creating
favorable conditions for people of great scholarship to give university
lectures, inviting the talented to participate in national projects, and
encouraging the elderly to do business, said Do Trong Ngoan, the
association's general secretary. State agencies
and organizations have given more spiritual and financial supports to
elderly intellectuals so that they can play a greater role in developing
various socioeconomic fields such as education and business. According to
Ngoan, a well-known professor aged over 70 can getas much as one million
Vietnamese dong (VND) (65 US dollars) when giving a lecture to students,
and elderly people receive tax reduction and low-interest bank loans when
running farms and small-and medium-sized enterprises. Partly thanks
to polices on encouraging the elderly to do business, families in many
localities have shaken off poverty, even become rich. As many as 850 out
of 2,000 farms in the Aged people in
"In a
word, caring for material and spiritual needs of elderly people and
continuously promoting their role are the responsibilities of families,
the state and the entire society," Ngoan noted. As elsewhere
in In addition to
families, the state and organizations of all kinds have given strong
support to the elderly. The government's current social welfare system is
offering them better pensions, social welfare and healthcare. Monthly
retirement pensions, which make up the most prevalent source of state
support to the elderly, now stand at 180,000 VND (11.6 dollars) at the
minimum. Prior to 1995, such pensions were only available to workers
retiring from the state sector. Many elderly
people, who may not be retired workers, but have made patriotic
sacrifices, can receive other kinds of pensions -- monthly allowance or
houses, even both. Such people are war invalids, parents who have lost
children during military battles, and those who performed special
revolutionary services. "Elderly
persons with no retirement pensions or no relatives can also receive state
support. Lonely people are given at least 45,000 VND (2.9 dollars) a
month, many of whom live in 200 state homes for the aged nationwide,"
Ngoan said. Regarding
healthcare, the elderly enjoy not only health insurance services like
others, but also priorities. They can undergo checks-up and treatment free
of charges in wards and communes, and pay much lower charges for major
operations. Long time ago,
the Vietnamese government asked hospitals to build geriatric departments
and the Ministry of Health to intensify research in the field of care and
protection of the health of elderly people. These requirements are stated
in the ordinance on elderly people that took effect in 2000. In addition to
families and state agencies, many businesses payattention to elderly
people's needs. They turn out certain food, clothes, hats, shoes and
glasses to meet their tastes. However, they have yet to fully exploit this
potential market. so far, To serve the
elderly better and tap their expertise further, The
country now has nearly 8 million people aged 60 upwards, or10 percent of
its population. According to demographers, the number of Vietnamese
elderly people will increase rapidly after 2010, and account for 23.5
percent of the population by 2050.
Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
