What makes people happy

Rai Cave – Pearl of Vinh Hy Bay

February 25, 2021 by en.nhandan.org.vn

Rai Cave is located in the south of Vinh Hy Bay, Nui Chua National Park, Vinh Hai commune, Ninh Hai district, Ninh Thuan province.

It is only about 35 km from Phan Rang city, about 40 km from Cam Ranh city (Khanh Hoa province) and about 90 km from Nha Trang city (Khanh Hoa), very convenient for visitors.

The road to Rai Cave is beautiful, winding between the magnificent blue sea and romantic green meadows.

According to local people, the reason it is called Rai Cave because it used to be inhabited by sea otters and many dipterocarpus alatus, which were used to extract oil to paint ships and boats to help make them more waterproof.

Coming to Rai Cave, tourists are captivated by the magical natural scenery. Just taking a photo at any angle produce a quality shot, for anyone. Rai Cave is not a large cave but in fact a rocky cliff protruding into the sea with many niches and compartments with strange shapes.

Enjoying the pictures full of a hauntingly eerie blend of moss and waves, you’ll have endless pleasure admiring this masterpiece of nature. The moss grows on the coral under the clear waters, looking from afar like giant green jade boulders.

Because of the geological tectonics millions of years ago, the ancient coral reefs have grown into a large area that tourists call “Mars”. At the bottom of the coral reef is an ancient coral block, about the same height as sea level. This is also one of the characteristics which attract many visitors to Rai Cave. When the waves hit the rocks, the water pours in, the slope of the rock makes the water flow back into the sea, creating a strange waterfall effect. Many people call this amazing phenomenon “the waterfall on the sea” and Rai cave is the only place to have this phenomenon.

Rai Cave at dawn or dusk can offer one of the most unique experiences.

Not long ago, a 300 m long wooden bridge through the steep cliffs was erected so that visitors can visit and admire the impressive panoramic beauty of Rai Cave.

If visitors want to “check-in” here gently, they just need to immerse themselves, place their bare feet on the white sand strip and dip their hands in the cool seawater to feel the freshness of nature.

In order to have a deeper experience at Rai Cave, guests can stay overnight to catch the most beautiful moments of this wonder, with coral diving or moon snail catching among the rocks.

Rai Cave is currently a destination serviced by many tour operators, combined with other attractive destinations along the same route such as Suoi Tien sheep field, Thai An vineyard and Vinh Hy bay, adding even more interesting tours and activities.

Vietnam repatriates more than 13,000 citizens so far: Spokesperson

July 17, 2020 by hanoitimes.vn

The Hanoitimes – The repatriation has started from April 10 and all returnees need to undergo mandatory quarantine upon arrival.

Vietnam has brought home more than 13,300 citizens who were in need in different parts of the world amid the global health crisis.

Vietnamese people on way home. Photo: Vietnam Airlines

“As many as 13,323 returnees who were stranded in many countries and territories have been back to homeland on 55 repatriation flights since April 10,” Spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said at a press conference on July 16.

Hang said that since the spread of Covid-19 from the beginning of the year, many countries have imposed movement restrictions and suspended commercial flights, leaving a number of Vietnamese people stranded across the world.

For that reason, Vietnamese authorities have cooperated with foreign countries’ agencies and airlines to make repatriation flights possible. The repatriation has closely followed requirements on temperature screening and mandatory quarantine, Hang said in a statement.

She added that Vietnam would continue operating repatriation flights basing on demand and domestic quarantine capacity.

Spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Photo: MOFA

Regarding cheats that may happen online to Vietnamese people who need to return home, the spokesperson said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Consular Department and overseas Vietnamese missions have publicized news and ticket buying procedures to provide official information on the repatriation.

With the registration for flights home, authorized agencies have a list of people in deed and the authorities themselves email each person involved.

“We advise Vietnamese people to closely follow instructions by the Vietnamese missions abroad and proceed with the ticket buying only when receiving email from those agencies,” Hang warned.

Earlier this month, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked government agencies to bring home another 14,000 Vietnamese citizens in the course of rising global infections of coronavirus.

The returnees will be those in the priority list: Children under 18, the elderly, the sick, laborers with expired contracts or no accommodation, students without dormitories, stranded tourists, and others of special cases.

In addition, the repatriation needs to meet requirements on safety and quarantine capacity.

All expenses for the 14-day quarantine in Vietnam are free of charge.

Hanoi strives to accelerate disbursement of public investment

September 4, 2020 by en.nhandan.org.vn

Low disbursement rate

The important project of building urban railway line No.3 connecting Nhon and Hanoi Station (with a total length of 12.5km and an investment of VND32.9 trillion) is facing slow progress with only 43% of investment disbursed.

Investment capital in railway line No.2 connecting Nam Thang Long and Tran Hung Dao also cannot be disbursed in time in 2020 due to project adjustments after the Law on Public Investment was enacted.

The Yen Xa wastewater treatment plant project started in October 2016 with investment of over VND16 trillion but only 40% of construction items has been completed.

These are key public investment projects in Hanoi that are stagnant, with low disbursement rates. In addition, there are a number of other sluggish projects such as 11 projects to build police headquarters at district, commune and ward levels with a total investment of VND237 billion and only 40% of capital disbursed as well as the project to build the Le Van Luong – Belt road 3 underground tunnel with an investment of VND50 billion but with onlyVND5.8 billion disbursed, among others.

Vice Chairman of Hanoi People’s Committee Le Hong Son said that the city decided to spend VND45.5 trillion worth of public investment on public projects in 2020. The city has disbursed VND26.6 trillion in the first eight months of this year, up 2.8% over the same period last year and equivalent to 58.6% of the yearly plan.

Regarding infrastructure construction projects, the city set the target of allocating VND14.8 trillion to 272 projects but only 50 projects have been completed, Son noted.

Removing problems

According to the Hanoi municipal People’s Committee, the disbursement of public investment and the implementation of public projects remains slow mainly due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, inadequacies in legal documents, prolonged land clearance and the weaknesses of deployment units.

Director of the Urban Railway Project Management Board Nguyen Cao Minh said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign experts could not go to Hanoi while equipment and components ordered from abroad were also delayed, slowing down the progress of urban railway lines.

In addition, land clearance and resettlement of affected residents continues to encounter problems including the identification of the origin of land and complaints against compensation policy and prices, which also affect the construction progress.

The complicated overlapping of regulations between the Law on Public Investment and other laws also reduces the speed of public projects.

Director of the Hanoi Management Board of Projects on Water Supply, Drainage and Environment Nguyen Van Hung added that the stagnant disbursement is also attributable to irresponsibility in the operating process of investors and the lack of capacity of staff on project management boards.

To speed up the disbursement of public investment, Hanoi will continue to implement ten groups of tasks and solutions. In particular, the city will focus on directing investors to urgently carry out projects on the list of medium-term public investment plans as approved by the City People’s Council.

The city will also strengthen the inspection and supervision of investment projects with low disbursement results to promptly handle delayed projects. Meanwhile, departments and agencies should continue to review and implement administrative reform for procedures regarding construction investment and compensation for land clearance and land acquisition, amongst others.

“The city will closely monitor the implementation of projects and promptly adjust the capital plans from projects with slow disbursement to other projects. The city will also give specific directions on the handling of problems regarding each project while strengthening management and supervision at construction sites to achieve the disbursement target of 97% to 100% of public investment capital in 2020 and in January 2021, making an important contribution to achieving set growth targets,” said Standing Vice Chairman of Hanoi People’s Committee Nguyen Van Suu.

Universal Robots: Leveraging automation to reduce workplace injuries

February 24, 2021 by www.vir.com.vn

Automation technology can reduce most common causes of injury in manufacturing environments

Automation technology can help increase productivity and reduce up to 72 per cent of the common causes of injury in manufacturing environments.

According to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Vietnam recorded 3,349 occupational accidents from January to June 2020 with total deaths numbering 378.

The accidents were most prevalent in the manufacturing sector (27.41 per cent), construction (23.24 per cent), and services (12.35 per cent) while the remaining 37 per cent was spread across other sectors.

Most local manufacturers are currently facing a growing skilled talent shortage which strains their overall productivity and growth. At the same time, employers are also facing immense costs associated with workplace-related injuries.

“Cobots can perform tasks that may be dangerous or injury-prone for humans. With built-in safety features that slow the robot arm when a human enters its workspace, cobots can keep human colleagues safe from occupational injuries as they address repetitive and dangerous tasks in the manufacturing sector,” said James McKew, regional director of Asia-Pacific at Universal Robots.

For more complex applications, Universal Robots has a comprehensive network of Certified System Integrators and Authorised Training Centres ready to support users with day-to-day operations after the initial installation.

Universal Robots’ adjustable safety system allows companies to adjust a range of parameters to reduce the risks involved with implementing an industrial robot application.

These include limiting the force, speed, power, or momentum of the robot, or restricting its workspace using safety boundaries. Productivity gains, along with the inherently safe design of cobot solutions, signify this new automation technology could reduce up to 72 per cent of the common causes of injury in manufacturing environments.

“As we move closer to the vision of Industry 5.0 where man and machine work together on the smart factory floor, the need to consider the safety and compliance requirements of this new kind of workplace has become paramount. In a collaborative workforce, human and robots complement each other in their roles which offers significant opportunities to enhance manufacturing productivity, innovation, safety, and overall job satisfaction in the workplace,” said McKew.

McKew pointed out that companies can achieve a faster Return on Investment (ROI) by using cobots to free up workers’ time, allowing them to tackle higher productivity processes and ultimately acquire new skills.

Unlike traditional robots that require engineer-level programming, cobots are designed to make programming simple through human-machine interfaces (HMI) familiar to anyone who has used a smartphone.

By eliminating the need for formal education in programming or robotics, such interfaces and capabilities make the skills gap and learning curve for using cobots diminishingly small.

Universal Robots encourages local manufacturers to adopt the perfect man and machine collaboration. With cobots, manufacturers in Vietnam need not fear the impacts caused by the growing skilled talent shortage.

The collaboration greatly reduces the time, effort, and cost associated with using the same cobot for various tasks as a cobot’s flexibility translates to a significantly faster return on investment.

Universal Robots (UR) was founded in 2005 to make robot technology accessible to all by developing small, user-friendly, reasonably priced, flexible cobots that are safe to work side-by-side with people.

Since the first cobot was launched in 2008, the company has experienced considerable growth with the user-friendly cobots now sold worldwide. The company has regional offices around the world, such as in the US, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia, China, India, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea, among others. In 2020, Universal Robots had a revenue of $219 million.

By Universal Robots

Pioneering mobile check-up services in Quang Khoi

February 25, 2021 by www.vir.com.vn

E-records are helping to streamline processes for medical professionals

Dr. Nguyen Van Khoi, board chairman at Quang Khoi General Hospital, said that one of the hospital’s new business strategies to materialise its mission is to launch a mobile check-up service, which is the result of its 10-year development efforts.

“COVID-19 has had significant impacts on the economy and human life, thus affecting people’s access to healthcare services. With the new service, we hope to bring health services closer and make it more convenient to people,“ Khoi noted.

The hospital has focused investment in development of the mobile check-up service in recent years in an effort to meet growing demands for regular check-ups for workers and white-collar workers at offices and factories. This service helps ensure the quality of regular check-ups for employees of businesses, while saving travelling and waiting times for them.

Looking like a mobile clinic, the mobile check-up service vehicles of Quang Khoi General Hospital are fully equipped with advanced medical equipment and machines such as 4D ultrasound machine; digital x-ray machine; ear, nose, and throat endoscopes; electrocardiogram machines; and more, thus ensuring the best possible on-site healthcare service quality. These devices are connected directly with the management software on electronic health records to facilitate the research and management of health conditions of each individual.

Moreover, drawing rooms are equipped with air conditioners and ventilation to ensure fresh environment and best conditions for medical examiners. Especially, the results of health check-ups are available on mobile phones and electronic health records. In addition, the multidisciplinary team of the mobile check-up service vehicles have medical proficiency and are highly trained at home and internationally.

With all of these factors, the new service has received support from labourers, with many domestic and foreign-invested enterprises selecting it. They include companies such as PTSC Thanh Hoa, Nghi Son International Port Co., Ltd., Nghi Son Thermal Power JSC, Japan’s TOA, Hoa Sen Group (Nghe An office), Lilama 18.1, and many others.

Together with new services development, Quang Khoi General Hospital has also been paying due attention to IT application in management and operation.

The management software on electronic health records applied in the mobile check-up service is one of the hospital’s encouraging achievements in line with the health sector’s electronic health records development plan and development of smart hospitals.

With strong efforts on technology application, Quang Khoi has become the ninth hospital nationwide to receive Ministry of Health recognition as a successful performer of electronic health records. Quang Khoi was also honoured as the pioneer in digital transformation in the health sector at the E-Health Vietnam Summit 2020.

As part of Quang Khoi’s development plan, the hospital has strengthened international cooperation as a way to help improve professionalism for its health professionals, and approach new treatment methods and techniques, thus enabling it to satisfy new demands.

For instance, Quang Khoi made working visits to a number of hospitals in 2020, including FV Hospital and Hanh Phuc International Hospital, both of which won Joint Commission International accreditation – a global certification on hospital quality management.

Also last October, Quang Khoi signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Hanoi French Hospital, with regular check-ups and hospital fee guarantee being included to ensure diversified benefits for patients depending on their demands and financial capacity.

The cooperation is expected to bring about many more opportunities for Quang Khoi to further improve professionalism of its health professionals, while diversifying high-quality health services for customers, especially corporate ones. With strong investment and comprehensive and constant innovation, Quang Khoi General Hospital is winning more confidence from customers and partners, reaffirming its leading position among privately-run facilities in the central region.

By Hoai Nam

Robot-assisted surgery trending in Vietnam’s major cities

February 28, 2019 by tuoitrenews.vn

An increasing number of hospitals in Vietnam are adding robotic surgery to their medical arsenal, hoping the extra set of mechanical hands will help give their patients some much needed relief.

Robotic surgery, computer-assisted surgery, and robot-assisted surgery are terms for technological developments that use robotic systems to aid in surgical procedures.

In 2014, the Vietnam National Children’s Hospital in Hanoi was the first to deploy the U.S.-made DaVinci surgery system for children’s endoscopic operations.

Between 2016 and 2017, more modern versions of the DaVinci robot began appearing at Binh Dan Hospital and Cho Ray Hospital, both located in Ho Chi Minh City, as well as at Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi.

Dr. Pham Gia Hien, head of the pediatric neurosurgery center of Vietnam National Children’s Hospital, stressed that this type of technology, despite its astronomical cost, is the future of surgery.

A wonder tool for surgeons

In February 2019, the People’s Hospital 115 in Ho Chi Minh City amazed medical experts with a successful brain operation using a system known as Modus V Synaptive II from Canada.

This state-of-the-art surgery tool cost US$2.3 million, and marked its host hospital as the pioneer in applying robotic assistance in neurosurgery.

The equipment will aid the hospital’s staff with its 2,350 yearly neurological operations.

On February 15, surgeons at the People’s Hospital 115 spent a mere 1.5 hours performing a successful brain tumor operation on a female patient from Tay Ninh, a province neighboring Ho Chi Minh City.

Such an achievement came with the expertise from Dr. Chu Tan Si – head of the nerve surgery department – who undertook training in the U.S. in 2017 and in Switzerland in 2018, and the assistance of Professor Amin Kassam – vice-president of neurosciences at Aurora Health Care, a U.S.-based non-profit health care network.

“Thanks to the robotic system, operations can take place in a much shorter amount of time compared to microsurgery – that is, using a microscope without any robotic navigation,” Dr. Si said.

“Instead of looking at your hands, you look at a large screen while manipulating the robotic system.”

A group of doctors perform a surgery using computer-assisted technology. Photo: Tuoi Tre

According to its website, Modus V Synaptive II provides a larger field of view, a higher depth of field and more natural color reproduction.

This makes for a clear view of critical anatomical structures throughout the operation.

Dr. Si noted the benefits that such robotic surgery offers to both surgeons and patients.

“It adds confidence to the doctor with its AI [artificial intelligence] technology that can tell the difference between sensory neurotransmitters and can even advise the best approach route to avoid damage.”

Less pain, quicker recovery, lower cost

To the patients, computer-assisted surgery means fast-track recovery and reduced pain.

An elderly patient at Binh Dan Hospital could move around and eat normally only two days after her liver removal operation in August 2017.

“The surgeons and their robotic arms made this surgery such an easy pill to swallow. Now I can be up and running again,” the patient said.

As proof of the minimal pain robotically-assisted surgery can offer, doctors at Cho Ray Hospital have performed two successful live kidney transplants using robotic assistance.

T.V.T., a 59-year-old patient from the coastal city of Vung Tau, managed to walk about by himself and eat light rice porridge only days after his esophageal surgery here.

Dr. Do Ba Hung, deputy director of Binh Dan Hospital, said that robotic surgery allows a 3D field of view with high-definition resolution and a 12x magnification effect.

Binh Dan Hospital now offers robotic surgery service for urinary excretion operations and general surgery, with prices ranging around VND117-131 million ($5,000-5,600).

This amount is much lower than that for the same service in Singapore (around $26,000) and in the U.S. (around $41,000).

Also, the medical insurance policy has recently approved its coverage of certain robotic surgery types such as spinal and joint replacement operations.

According to Nguyen Ta Tinh, head of the policy faculty from Vietnam Social Security, children, the elderly and people who have made contributions to the country are entitled to 40 percent of the total cost, and regular patients 30 percent.

Surgeons operate the robotic arms while watching an HD screen. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A cause for concern

The robotic systems are an expensive investment, priced from $2.3 million to $3.5 million, according to data gathered by TuoiTre (Youth) newspaper.

Surveys have revealed that there are around 3,000 robotic surgery systems in the U.S., 100 in South Korea and around ten in Vietnam.

Besides those available in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, the Maternity and Pediatrics Hospital in the northern province of Quang Ninh performed for the first time a hysterectomy surgery on a 49-year-old patient from Van Don District in November 2018.

Its director, Nguyen Quoc Hung, said that he felt a need for a more powerful device after this test run.

Robotic surgery systems, according to medical experts, is a cautious investment as the cost can be up to $4.3 million apiece.

Hospitals are advised to think twice regarding the functionality of the tool and their target patients.

According to Dr. Hien from Vietnam National Children’s Hospital, the cost of robotic surgery, for the patient, is 20 times as high as that of regular endoscopic operations.

He cautions against a technology race, quoting what happened in the Philippines, where hospitals paid through the nose for devices that fall into disuse because of understaffing.

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