Queen Mathilde of Belgium visits the National Children's Hospital

During the State visit to Vietnam of King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of the Kingdom of Belgium, on the afternoon of April 1, Queen Mathilde visited the National Children's Hospital.

Accompanying Queen Mathilde were Ms. Elisabeth Degryse, Minister and President of the French-speaking Belgian community of Wallonia-Bruxelles; Ms. Pascale Delcomminette, Director General of the Wallonia-Bruxelles Foreign Affairs Agency and Director General of the Walloon Investment and Foreign Trade Promotion Agency.

Welcoming Queen Mathilde were Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan and Director of the National Children's Hospital Tran Minh Dien.

The visit of the Queen of the Kingdom of Belgium to the National Children's Hospital aims to highlight the strong cooperation between Belgium and Vietnam in the field of public health, especially child mental health.

Over the past 30 years, Belgium and Vietnam have had many effective cooperation programs in this field. Currently, the National Children's Hospital is participating in a cooperation project with Leonard de Vinci College.

This project is within the framework of the 2022-2024 cooperation program between the French-speaking Belgian Community of Wallonie-Bruxelles and Vietnam on human resource training, research cooperation on developmental disorders and application of Belgian therapeutic models in Vietnam as well as support for improving facilities, supporting medical equipment, and upgrading treatment spaces at the National Children's Hospital.

The Queen of Belgium is a psychologist and speech therapist, and is also the Honorary President of UNICEF. The Queen has a deep interest in health issues, especially child health. This visit is an important opportunity to highlight the long-standing cooperation between Vietnam and Belgium in this field, and to raise awareness of the importance of mental health care for children in Vietnam.

Belgian Queen Mathilde talks with a patient being treated at the National Children's Hospital. (Photo: VNA)

During the visit, the Belgian Queen met with doctors, psychologists and patients at the National Children's Hospital.

The Queen and Minister Dao Hong Lan participated in an art-painting therapy session with young people and observed a psycho-motor therapy session at the Department of Psychiatry. The Queen also visited and talked with children being treated at the National Children's Hospital.

Medical cooperation between Vietnam and the Kingdom of Belgium has been carried out since the 1990s of the last century. One of the first project activities between the two sides in the field of health was the project "Prevention and control of malaria in Hoa Binh province" in the period 1996-2001.

This project has achieved very good results. After 6 years of implementation, the malaria situation in Hoa Binh province has improved significantly. The malaria prevention and control network in the whole province has been strengthened in terms of facilities, equipment and staff capacity.

Both sides highly appreciated the results achieved through cooperation projects between Vietnamese universities, institutes and hospitals with their respective Belgian partners in the health sector.

The projects play a very positive role for Vietnam in the cause of caring for and protecting people's health, thereby promoting the process of economic and social development and deep international integration, contributing to creating the premise for consolidating and developing the cooperative partnership between Vietnam and the Wallonie-Bruxelles region in particular and the Kingdom of Belgium in general./.

(Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/hoang-hau-bi-mathilde-tham-benh-vien-nhi-trung-uong-post1024178.vnp