The Prime Minister and the Government delegation presented the hospital, located in Pho Cuong Commune of Duc Pho District with a bronze statue of President Ho Chi Minh and a television set.

Dung encouraged health-care workers at the hospital to follow the example of the martyr doctor, caring for all patients and especially the poor and other prioritised families.

Hospital director Vo Thanh Tan said a group of doctors from Ha Noi-based Heart Hospital would arrive there on Tuesday to provide free check-ups for more than 500 children in the province with inborn heart defects.

Heroine Dang Thuy Tram lost her life during the American War while protecting injured patients. Her life story became known through her diaries, which were taken to the US by an American soldier and sent back to her family in Viet Nam 35 years later.

Memorial activities

On the same day, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung visited a former member of the Ba To guerrilla unit, 95-year-old Vo Hong Phan, who lives in Quang Ngai Province.

The visits began a series of memorial activities for National Day for War Invalids and Martyrs next Sunday.

One event was a seminar on the 40th anniversary of the Dong Loc Junction Victory, held yesterday in the central province of Ha Tinh. It reaffirmed the significance of the victory’s historical and cultural value.

The junction, which is now a popular historic site for tourists, was an important place on the liberation forces’ North to South supply line. The US aircraft dropped almost 50,000 bombs and thousands of rockets onto the 50ha area between 1965 and 1968.

Nearly 500 Vietnamese soldiers and volunteers died at the junction within those three years. They included 10 young female volunteers levelling bomb craters, who then became legends.

A live show and awards ceremony for a music composition contest inspired by the deaths of the 10 girls on July 24, 1968, was organised on Saturday, at the historic site.

Co-organised by HCM City People’s Police Newspaper, the contest included 63 musical works of all types in its final round.

The song "Tinh yeu cua me" (The mother’s love) by composer Phan Huynh Dieu won the first prize.

Also yesterday, the remains of 123 Vietnamese war martyrs who fought to get rid of the genocidal regime in Cambodia were buried in Tam Nong cemetery in the southern province of Dong Thap after a memorial service organised by the provincial People’s Committee.

The remains were found and collected by Dong Thap Military Headquarters with the help of the Cambodian administration in the provinces of Prey Vang and Posat.

                                                                                                  Source: VNS