The event was chaired by Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee and Chairman of the Municipal People's Council Pham Van Hieu; Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee and Chairman of the Municipal People's Committee Tran Viet Truong; Member of the Standing Committee of the city Party Committee and Head of the city Party Committee’s Information and Education Commission Nguyen Ngoc Tam. Representatives from departments, agencies, unions, and localities in the city attended the conference.

At the conference, Member of the city Party Committee and Vice Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Nguyen Thuc Hien introduced a draft report summarising 15 years of implementation of Directive No. 38-CT/TW dated 07/9/2009 on “promoting health insurance in the new situation" (Directive No.38). 

Accordingly, over the past time, Can Tho Social Security promptly advised the city Party Committee and the city People's Committee to direct Party committees, the Government, the Fatherland Front and mass organisations to learn, popularise and implement Directive No.38, helping cadre force, civil servants, public employees, and people understand the meaning, position, and importance of participating in health insurance, contributing to stabilising people’s life and protecting people's health; and proactively coordinate in organising communication activities and dialogues with Party members, members of unions, and people on health insurance policies.

Member of the city Party Committee and Vice Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Nguyen Thuc Hien introduces a draft report at the conference

As a result, the number of health insurance participants in the city increased yearly, meeting and exceeding the assigned target. Specifically, the city had 488,925 health insurance participants in 2009, accounting for 41.10% of the population; in 2015, it had 870,307 health insurance participants, achieving a coverage rate of 70.03% of the population, up 381,382 people or up 78.04% compared to 2009; in 2023, 1,157,800 participated health insurance, which raised the health insurance coverage rate to 92.45%, an increase of 668,875 participants or 136% compared to 2009; The health insurance medical review information system (e-medical review) is connected with all local medical examination and treatment facilities that signed contracts with the social security office, facilitating the health insurance review, payment and advance payment for the health insurance medical examination and treatment facilities; All the 119 medical establishments accepted chip-based citizen identity cards when providing medical services with a total of 304,696 searches for health insurance card information thanks to chip-based ID cards; data of 1,083,592 out of 1,157,800 health insurance participants has been integrated with the national database on population, accounting for 94.4% of health insurance participants.

Permanent Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee and Chairman of the municipal People's Council Pham Van Hieu acknowledged, praised, and highly appreciated the achieved results, as well as the efforts, and determination of departments, agencies, and localities at all levels, branches in implementing Directive No. 38 over the last 15 years. Notably, Party committees, authorities, fatherland fronts and socio-political organisations in the city have deeply understood the contents of Directive 38 and documents related to health insurance policies, making positive changes in awareness and actions of cadres, Party members and civil servants in implementing health insurance policies in localities, agencies and units; Many health insurance policies have been amended and supplemented to better benefit people, procedures for health insurance participation and health insurance regime have been significantly reduced, which helped to attract more people to participate in health insurance; Communication work on health insurance policies, rights and responsibilities of health insurance participants are carried out in various and diverse forms; The coordination between the city social insurance and relevant localities, departments and branches in implementing health insurance policy is carried out closely and properly; The state management of health insurance and the management of the health insurance fund received great attention and generated positive results.

Vice Secretary of the city Party Committee and Chairman of the city People's Council Nguyen Van Hieu speaks at the event

Also at the conference, representatives from the Standing Board of the city Party Committee gave instructions on key tasks in 2024 and the following years, contributing to ensuring social security and promoting the socio-economic development of the city. Specifically, departments, agencies, and localities were asked to continue to closely follow the Party's guidelines, policies, and laws related to health insurance and people's health care, especially the contents of Directive No.38, Resolution No. 20 of the 12th Party Central Committee on strengthening healthcare and improving people's health in the new situation and the guiding documents, plans and implementation programmes of the city Party Committees and its Standing Board to improve the quality and efficiency of health insurance, ensure social security, and ensure healthcare in the current period.

They were also asked to focus on renovating thinking, developing communication forms and information dissemination, and ensuring regular, continuous, practical, effective, and suitable activities for specific target groups, to raise further people's awareness of the role, and significance of health insurance policies in the social security system and the interests of participants.

At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the leadership, direction, coordination, and participation of the whole political system, especially the responsibilities of People's Committees at all levels in implementing policies, laws, goals, and plans on health insurance. It is also needed to accelerate the implementation of plans and roadmaps for universal health insurance policy as regulated; and continue to include health insurance development targets in resolutions of Party committees and annual socio-economic development targets in localities.

Departments, agencies, and localities at all levels were asked to coordinate the State management of health insurance closely; strictly managing health insurance participants from the grassroots level; consolidating and strengthening the management of health insurance funds, and ensuring revenues and expenditures under regulations.