Health care in Vietnam
Contrary to the assertions of Pham Minh (Write On, GLW #623), in Vietnam, a poor country (US$430 GDP per capita) with 80 million people, health care is free for: (1) Ethnic minorities, some 10 million people, or 13% of the population, who are the poorest, and living in the remotest regions; (2) Others defined as "the poor", to whom free health-care cards are provided under the province-level Health Care Funds for the Poor (HCFP) program. According to the UNDP, this covered some 11 million people (13% of the population) by 2003; (3) Children under six (some 9 million people); (4) All formal sector workers, whether in state, foreign-invested or registered private firms, some 12-15% of the population, are covered by enterprise-paid compulsory health insurance; (5) Retired people who previously worked in state, foreign or registered private firms, which have to pay not only health insurance but also "social insurance" for their workers. This is a reasonably large group at present, given the formerly large state enterprise work force, but is declining given the proliferation of informal private micro-firms since 1990; and (6) "Heroic mothers" who lost husbands or sons in the war, and other war-affected categories (i.e., war disabled).
School children (i.e., six years and over) are covered by health insurance, with a compulsory parent payment of 15,000 dong ($1) for the whole year. Thus this is not free, but $1 for the year would not be a burden on any other than the absolute poor, who are supposed to be covered under categories 1 or 2 above.
Voluntary health insurance is available for 10,000 dong (66 cents) per month, which is not expensive, but would be a burden on a poor family with many members.
World Health Organisation field visits observed that initiatives such as fee exemptions, free essential drugs, health insurance and hospital funds for the poor have been launched "on a large scale since 2001" and that this policy has been "greeted enthusiastically by both patients and health workers".
For the uninsured, the cost of a simple visit to the hospital for examination or minor health problems, based on my discussions with many people from rural areas, plus some reports, averages around 2000 dong (13 cents).
Of course, there is no substitute for universal, free, high-quality health care, like in Cuba. Many just above the absolute poor "fall through the cracks" of this system, including moderately poor farmers or those working in the small-scale informal private sector, not covered by enterprise health insurance. The cost of major operations involving expensive equipment and medicines is more crushing for the uninsured — as a poor government, like elsewhere in the Third World, Vietnam does not fully cover these costs, though the Politburo may be moving to change this by 2010.
Nevertheless, these policies deserve some acknowledgement, given the country's poverty and the lack of reparations after decades of destruction, rather than the kind of bland "denunciations" claiming the "Hanoi regime" provides "nothing".
Michael Karadjis
Hanoi
Amnesty International
The letter by Tim Anderson to Amnesty USA (GLW #622) shows the hypocrisy of the USA and its "poodles" in US Amnesty. These organisations are suspect as merely propaganda organisations to serve Republican interests. While croaking on about Cuba, they are coy about their own government's appalling record such as the case of the Cuban Five arrested by the FBI for spying on the terrorists harboured in Miami. These right-wing criminals have caused many civilian deaths (over 3000) in Cuba, yet the US is silent on these crimes.
Anderson mentioned the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who is currently seeking asylum in the USA. He is also wanted by Italy for the murder of one of its citizens. But I notice how silent the Australian "free press" is on this issue. Carriles, who should have life imprisonment for the murder of 75 civilians on Flight CU455 on October 6, 1976, has every reason to expect Bush 2 will grant him asylum — because when Bush 1 became president he granted Carriles co-accused — Orlando Bosch — asylum.
The suspicion is that Bush 1, who was head of the CIA in 1976, sanctioned, supported and financed the bombing of Flight CU455.
Bush's hypocrisy reeks to the heavens because Bush 1 never let up about Lockerbie while knowing that he had a part in a similar plane bombing in 1976.
The criminal complicity of the US is demonstrated by the fact that under pressure from the US ambassador, the notorious neo-con Otto Reich, Bosch was spirited out of prison in Venezuela in a government jet.
Dan O'Brien
via email [Abridged]
Apartheid
South Africa was severely punished for practising apartheid, but many other nations that practice apartheid go unnoticed. The "genocide" of blacks in Sudan by Arab militias barely rates a mention in the news. 50,000 are dead, and many of the women have been gang-raped by these militias, with newborn "whiter" babies as proof, yet the world shows no concern. This is perhaps the worst example of apartheid, but there are many cases.
A recent UN report revealed that half of all Arab women can't read or write. Nothing is said to the Islamic world because of cultural sensitivities, but in reality they are human rights abuses, gender apartheid. Some say education for females is neglected because many Islamic nations are poor, although this ignores the fact that the nation with the highest illiteracy rate among females is Saudi Arabia, a vastly wealthy country where education, even tertiary, is free.
We must complain about all human rights abuses, regardless of race, religion or culture. There can't be one standard for the West and a lower standard for everyone else. Would we really have let South Africa off the hook if they told us their discrimination against blacks was based on religious grounds?
Benjamin Burns
Mardi, NSW
Abortion
Hardly a day goes by that there is not a new article in the newspapers about the current abortion debate. Attacks on women's reproductive rights are an attack on our most basic freedom to control our own bodies. And with a new conservative elected as pope and the Catholic Church getting ready to make May 1 Respect for Life Sunday, there will be a renewed energy in the conservatives' anti-women agenda.
It is vital that we stand up to every attempt by religious and social conservatives to put the abortion debate on their terms. This is why every mobilisation of anti-choice groups must be met with an equally determined mobilisation of the pro-choice movement. We can't let the religious right take May Day away from us!
Currently two pro-women campaigns exist in Melbourne. The Pro-Choice Coalition, which has taken a lobbying role and appears to support Greens' policies like "bubble" legislation to protect abortion clinics. But there is also the more activist-based Campaign for Women's Reproductive Rights (CWRR). This campaign has decided to avoid the single-issue strategy and instead tie the fight for free, accessible, safe abortion on demand to broader demands for free 24-hour child care and paid maternity leave.
It is absolutely necessary to link demands for abortion to broader issues of women's reproductive rights. In this way the CWRR shows how a woman's right to choose is a class issue.
It is with this in mind that the CWRR has been collecting signatures for a petition supporting rights to abortion, maternity leave and child care. This petition will be delivered to Wills ALP MP Kelvin Thomson on April 30 at a rally at 11am in the Coburg Mall.
Thomson has been vocal in the local newspapers about his own pro-choice stance and has supported the building of the rally and will speak at it. At a time when the ALP has not been consistent in a pro-choice stance it is an important sign of the campaign's effectiveness that at least one local MP has recognised the need to be seen as clearly pro-choice.
After the petition campaign, the CWRR will turn its attention to more active campaigning, including clinic defence. We need to do much more than defend the paltry rights we already have. We need an active campaign to extend those rights and to make the struggle for women's reproductive rights and women's liberation a vital part of the class struggle.
Carlene Wilson
Melbourne
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, April 27, 2005.
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