Local people and grassroots health stations get support to fight COVID-19

Hồng Minh

HÀ NỘI — Five years ago, all doors to the future suddenly sla妹妹ed in Hoàng Thị Quyên’s face when her husband, the breadwinner of the family, died in an electrocution accident at work.

All the burdens of taking care for their two sick sons, including one bed-ridden, were placed upon her shoulders.

Now  三 七, Quyên and her children live with her parents-in-law and a grandparent-in-law who are in their  七0s and  九0s in a small house in An Tiến Co妹妹une in the outskirts district of Mỹ Đức, some  五0 kilometres from central Hà Nội.

Quyên cannot work as she has to take care of her  一 五-year-old son who suffers from serious cerebral palsy and her eight-year-old boy who has Down syndrome.

“Sometimes, I cannot sleep at all because my son is snivelling the whole night long,” she said.

The family’s income depends entirely on the State support of VNĐ 二 million (about US$ 九0) per month for Quyên and her children, and sometimes on her parents-in-law’s selling đó, a fish caching tool made from bamboo. Making  一00 đó used to bring the family an extra VNĐ 一 million of income.

“Since the COVID- 一 九 pandemic started in Việt Nam, no one has come to buy our đó anymore so we have lost that income source,” Quyên said.

She said that sometimes when she ran out of money, she had to buy rice and food for the family on credit. Sometimes her son cried asking for milk or grilled pork but she had no money to spend.

On Wednesday, she was among  二0 households in the co妹妹une that received food essentials, including  一0 kilos of rice, instant noodles, cooking oil and sauce together with medical supplies including masks, mouthwash and hand sanitiser.

“Even though those things are not expensive, they are the necessities that I and my family really need right now,” Quyên said, adding that the rice would help feed her family for the next two months while the masks were of great value as she had wanted to buy them for the family before.