Decision No. 197/2001/QĐ-TTg On approving the National Policy on Prevention and Control of Accidents and Injuries for the period 2002-2010

Pursuant to …;

Regarding the approval of the National Policy on Accident and Injury Prevention for the period 2002-2010

injuries during the period from 2002 to 2010

PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the Government Organization Law dated September 30, 1992;

Considering the proposal of the Minister of Health,

DECISION:

Article 1. Approving the National Policy on Accident and Injury Prevention for the period 2002-2010, which includes the following main contents:

1. Objectives:

a) General Objective: Gradually reduce accidents and injuries across all aspects of social life such as transportation, production labor, family life, schools, public places, etc., to achieve positive results in ensuring safety of lives and property, contributing to the happiness of the people, and ensuring sustainable development of the country in economic, political, and social aspects.

b) Specific Objectives:

- Enhance awareness and responsibility of agencies, organizations, and individuals, thereby changing behaviors and lifestyles appropriately to limit accidents and injuries.

- Implement socialization of accident and injury prevention work, creating deep concern from all levels of government, social organizations, and the entire population towards accident and injury prevention.

- Implement resolute and timely measures to gradually reduce accidents and injuries, especially serious ones.

- By 2010, the number of accidents in schools will decrease by 40%, in production labor by 30%, in families and communities by 30% compared to 2000. By 2005, the number of deaths due to traffic accidents will decrease from 14 to 11 people per 10,000 vehicles, and by 2010, it will decrease to 9 people per 10,000 vehicles.

2. Measures:

a) Strengthen leadership and guidance of ministries, sectors, and People's Committees at all levels regarding accident and injury prevention work to ensure safety for the people.

- Clearly identify accident and injury prevention as one of the important tasks of local socio-economic development strategies and must be concretized into plans and programs of activities. Clearly define objectives and specific measures in resolutions of People's Councils at all levels, plans of People's Committees at all levels, and organizations in economic and social sectors.

- Relevant ministries, sectors, and People's Committees assign tasks to a unit to provide advisory services and regularly monitor this work, directly led by a deputy leader of the agency to organize the implementation of accident and injury prevention work. The advisory unit has a specific program of activities, regularly evaluates, summarizes, and proposes to the Party committee and local authorities positive policies and measures to enhance the effectiveness of accident and injury prevention work.

- Incorporate the accident and injury prevention program as an indicator of the competition movement in localities, sectors, and units, and combine it with other movements such as building cultural villages, cultural families, and social evil prevention.

- Train and improve the cadre team, enhance understanding and organizational and directive capabilities at all levels, and particularly emphasize inspection and supervision of subordinate implementation, strictly implementing regular reporting systems.

b) Continuously promote education and propaganda on accident and injury prevention; integrate and combine within the political activities of agencies, organizations, and community residents. Educational content includes the Party's guidelines and State laws on accident and injury prevention, ensuring safety in all areas of social life. At the same time, educate everyone to increase their understanding of potential risks and how to prevent and respond to accidents and injuries in various situations. Increase educational activities on accident and injury prevention in schools.

c) Improve environmental hygiene, working conditions, and transportation means, eliminate risks to ensure that people live and work in safe environments.

- Upgrade roads (automobile roads, railway, sea, river) including national, provincial, and district roads. Particularly focus on addressing critical points of traffic accidents on high-speed routes. Consolidate and supplement the complete safety signaling system on major roads.

- Regularly inspect transportation vehicles on land, sea, air, equipment at stations, ports, factories, construction sites, irrigation systems, residential construction projects, power transmission systems, and other basic facilities. Timely detect and address technical deficiencies to ensure safety during operation and use of facilities and equipment.

In each village, neighborhood, school, and family, regularly inspect and identify potential risks of accidents to take corrective measures.

Strengthen labor safety inspections, ensure compliance with labor discipline, and guarantee safety in production and labor with the principle of "Production must be safe, Safety ensures production."

- Organize social environment management, clean up areas from social evils and criminal offenses, maintain healthy relationships within families and society to prevent violence. Promptly resolve conflicts within families and villages to prevent and mediate incidents that may lead to suicide, which is currently a growing risk.

d) Develop, supplement, and perfect laws on accident and injury prevention, ensuring social order, security, and safety, providing a legal framework for implementation. Particularly focus on traffic laws, labor protection, irrigation facility protection, fire and explosion prevention, agricultural chemical use, social order and security, and environmental hygiene in production and daily life.

Enhance the capacity and responsibility of vehicle quality inspection agencies and training institutions issuing driving licenses to avoid severe consequences caused by negative practices in this field.

Article 1 ||| Closely coordinate among relevant functional sectors, regularly organize comprehensive inspections of driving training facilities, comprehensively evaluate their capacity, quality, curriculum content, and license issuance procedures to train a high-quality pool of drivers.

e) Establish a system for monitoring, compiling, analyzing, and categorizing injuries and losses occurring in specific areas and periods, grasp the trends and causes of accidents and injuries to develop timely and effective policies and measures.

g) The health sector must fully and meticulously prepare resources including equipment, medicines, and personnel to promptly rescue victims, effectively organize treatment and rehabilitation.

Organize emergency response systems in necessary areas to quickly and safely transport accident victims to emergency facilities. Health facilities, especially at district and commune levels, need to accurately assess the number and severity of accidents and injuries locally, the medical supplies typically required, and proactively prepare both materials and personnel for prompt and effective victim care. Health stations from communes to nearby hospitals on major traffic routes should be equipped with more complete facilities, and healthcare staff should be better trained in emergency response skills. Train village health workers and local residents in basic first aid techniques.

Enhance the emergency response capabilities of provincial, central, and national-level hospitals, particularly for severe cases. Effectively organize treatment and rehabilitation.

3. Implementation:

a) Ministries and sectors, according to their functions and responsibilities, cooperate with all levels of government and social organizations to create a comprehensive societal effort in preventing and combating injuries across all aspects of social life. In this general cooperation, each ministry and sector must play a key role in its respective management area.

People's Committees at all levels are responsible for directing and organizing coordination among agencies under their management, economic and social organizations in the locality to implement tasks related to injury prevention and control.

b) The Ministry of Health leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors to direct the organization of victim treatment, health care, and functional recovery; widely guide the public on safe medication use and food safety to prevent poisoning; lead and coordinate in monitoring, compiling, and categorizing injuries; take primary responsibility and coordinate with other ministries, sectors, and provincial/municipal People's Committees to deeply engage in injury prevention and control, building safe communities such as provinces, cities, districts, towns, schools, etc., summarizing experiences to expand safe community construction nationwide.

c) The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors to build and implement information dissemination, education activities through mass media on injury prevention and control.

d) The Ministry of Transport leads and coordinates with the Ministry of Public Security and the National Traffic Safety Committee to develop concrete plans to enhance traffic control forces' capacity, prevent traffic accidents in key areas and with high-risk transportation means; propose to the Government new policies, rules, and regulations to strengthen traffic order and safety, reduce accidents.

đ) The Ministry of Education and Training leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors to implement school health programs, including injury prevention and control content; build safe schools, compile educational materials on injury prevention and control within schools.

e) The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors to guide and regularly inspect labor hygiene and safety regulations, and implement measures to ensure safety in work and production.

g) The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors to properly implement laws and measures for typhoon and flood prevention, dike protection, and guide farmers on safe storage and use of agricultural chemicals.

h) The Ministry of Industry leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors to ensure safety in mineral extraction, chemical production and use, and electricity usage, especially in rural areas.

i) The Vietnam Children's Protection and Care Committee leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors to guide and regularly inspect regulations on children's injury prevention and control.

k) The Sports Committee leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors to guide and regularly inspect regulations on injury prevention and control and ensure safety for athletes and members participating in sports activities.

l) Other ministries, sectors, and localities actively coordinate with relevant ministries and sectors to organize injury prevention and control within their respective fields of management, proactively allocate regular funds from their budgets to implement injury prevention and control tasks.

m) Suggest that the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and its member organizations coordinate with all levels of sectors to mobilize the people nationwide to actively participate in injury prevention and control activities, contributing to improving the quality of life for citizens and promoting the country's socio-economic development.

n) On the basis of the national policy on accident and injury prevention, the Ministries and ministerial-level agencies shall develop Action Programs for accident and injury prevention within their respective sectors; the People's Committees of provinces shall develop Action Programs for accident and injury prevention in their respective localities.

o) Establish a National Steering Committee for Accident and Injury Prevention to assist the Prime Minister in directing and organizing the implementation of accident and injury prevention work nationwide.

The Minister of Health shall be the Chairman of the Steering Committee. The Ministry of Health shall be the permanent office of the National Steering Committee for Accident and Injury Prevention.

Article 2. THIS DECISION SHALL TAKE EFFECT 15 DAYS AFTER THE DATE OF SIGNATURE.

Article 3. Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies, Heads of government-affiliated agencies, Chairpersons of People's Committees of provinces and centrally governed cities are responsible for implementing this Decision./.