On October 17, at the Government headquarters, Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long chaired a meeting of the National Committee for the Elderly.
Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Lien Huong said that the work of caring for the elderly (NCT) is comprehensively implemented in many fields.
More than 14.1 million people have health insurance cards (HI), 61 million health insurance examinations and treatments (HI), costing more than 58,000 billion VND; 225,000 NCT continue to participate in voluntary social insurance (SI), along with millions of people receiving social allowances and social pensions.
80% of NCT has health records managed; the whole country has over 100 hospitals with nursing homes, tens of thousands of beds and medical staff, and tens of thousands of volunteers.
However, our country has entered the population aging stage, from 9.5 million NCT in 2014 to 16.5 million in 2025 and is forecast to become a country with an aging population by 2036.
"Departmental aging poses many challenges in terms of health, social security, labor and community services, while the lives of a part of the NCT, especially in remote areas, are still difficult," said Deputy Minister Nguyen Thi Lien Huong.
Mr. Truong Xuan Cu - Vice President of the Vietnam Association of the Elderly - expressed his interest in the silver economy (or silver hair economy, this concept describes activities, products and services developed to meet the needs of NCT) that are being developed in many countries.
In Japan, people aged 65 and over contribute 20% of GDP; in the US, people over 50 contribute 46% of GDP. Mr. Truong Xuan Cu suggested that the Government should develop a project on developing the silver economy as well as promptly have policies and solutions to encourage the development of NCT care facilities.
The representative of the Association of the Elderly also said that they will organize an annual "Silver Economic Forum" to promote the development of the silver economy in Vietnam.
Concluding the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long said that the implementation of social security regimes and policies has achieved specific results. In the first 9 months of the year, the state budget spent nearly 6,400 billion VND on social allowances and social pensions.
Currently, about 2.8 million NCT receive pensions and social insurance benefits and nearly 70% of NCT receive periodic health check-ups...
The Deputy Prime Minister said that there are two emerging issues when encouraging the private sector to build NCT care facilities: land and tax.
"Comrades see how this policy can be qualitized, it can be regulated right in the draft resolution submitted to the National Assembly or related laws", the Deputy Prime Minister said and said that only then can we increase the number of NCT care facilities.
The Government leader requested the Ministry of Health to urgently review and strengthen the network of geriatric hospitals in provinces and cities, first of all, have a project to evaluate this geriatric health system, to be completed in the first quarter of 2026.
According to the Deputy Prime Minister, there are currently quite a lot of policies on NCT, located in different documents and not all policies can be implemented immediately. Some things need to be amended and supplemented, some things need to be funded.
The Deputy Prime Minister suggested that the Ministry of Health study and develop a systematization project, comprehensively evaluate all NCT care policies, "clearly identify what needs to be done, where to do, where to be located, who to do", "in general, it is very difficult to do".
