Campaign medal honours NPT projects in Vietnam
The Vietnamese Ministry of Health has awarded Nuffic senior programme administrator Tjay Koen Yap the prestigious 'Campaign Medal for People’s Health’. He received the award for his ‘outstanding contribution to the development of the health sector in Vietnam’ under the NPT programme.
By awarding this rare medal the government in Hanoi wishes to express its appreciation for the way in which Tjay Koen Yap coordinated four health projects. The projects were implemented under the Netherlands Programme for Institutional Strengthening of Post-secondary Education and Training Capacity (NPT).
Monitoring
The ministry is also impressed by Nuffic’s monitoring role during the implementation of the projects which focus on problem-based education for doctors, clinical pharmacy and nursing at university level, and preventive medicine.
NPT health projects in Vietnam include:
- strengthening medical skills training at eight medical faculties and universities (consortium leader University of Medicine and Pharmacy Ho Chi Minh City);
- improving the quality of university and college level nursing training (Ministry of Health and consortium leader Nam Dinh University of Nursing);
- strengthening the training quality of university level clinical pharmacists (consortium leader Hanoi University of Pharmacy);
- strengthening teaching and research capacity of preventive medicine in Vietnam (consortium leader Hanoi Medical University, Faculty of Public Health).
Praise to whom praise is due
Asked about his unique token of appreciation, Koen hurries to stress that praise should also go to his colleagues and should especially be extended to the Vietnamese and Dutch partners who have collaborated to improve health education nationwide.
Making available Dutch expertise
The excellent results of NPT health projects in Vietnam have been made possible by a broad range of consortia of Dutch and Asian organisations and companies, each with their own skills and expertise:
- medical skills training: Maastricht University;
- nursing: Saxion University of Applied Sciences;
- clinical Pharmacy: Groningen University, Institute of Technology Bandung (Indonesia) and Mahidol University (Thailand);
- preventive Medicine: Maastricht University, Radboud University Nijmegen, University of Amsterdam, Royal Tropical Institute and Thamassat University (Thailand).