Close leadership, people benefit

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh inspects epidemic prevention work, visits and encourages people in quarantined areas in Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

Policies are only as good as how they are implemented in real life. The same goes for social distancing policies to prevent epidemics. Providing health and social security services via hotlines and to people's homes are indeed policies that are both meaningful in limiting the spread of the epidemic and ensuring maximum convenience for people who have to live in isolation at home. The problem is just how they are being implemented in real life.

And to know how they are being implemented in life, the head of the Government, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, went “incognito”, closely following the grassroots to find the answer. He did not find the answer by listening to reports nor by going to the grassroots according to the pre-arranged program of the localities. He chose the facilities himself and went down without prior notice. And the answer he found was quite mixed. There are places where the hotline is actually quite cold: People have to call 3-4 times before the phone is picked up. But there are also places where people call once and the phone is picked up immediately.

Using hotlines is just one of many solutions proposed to both prevent the epidemic and ensure social security. And in reality, these hotlines can still be very hot or cold in different localities. That is not to mention that calling the hotline is one thing, receiving timely assistance through the hotline is a completely different thing. Even though the Prime Minister has only checked the first thing, the reminder and warning effect is still very large. Surely the service quality of the hotlines will be improved as soon as possible. And like that, people who have had to stay at home for months will have less hardship and deprivation.

In fact, to plan and adjust policies, reports and survey data are still the most important basis. However, if the Prime Minister goes deep and close to the grassroots to check, the quality of reports and survey data will be more assured. Simply because the relevant agencies will not dare to paint achievements by taking data from the ceiling. They know that the Prime Minister can go undercover to check in reality.

In addition, the actual feeling of the leader is also very important. By going to the grassroots, the Prime Minister will feel how the policy solutions are affecting and impacting the lives and livelihoods of the people. In fact, the State's costs in implementing epidemic prevention solutions are often measurable, but the costs of the people are much more difficult to measure. In many cases, the price people have to pay for complying with and implementing the proposed solutions is extremely large. Only when the Prime Minister feels that there is an opportunity for inappropriate policy solutions to be adjusted promptly. The situation of seeing the work but not the people will be quickly overcome.

Hopefully, all leaders will go down to the people, "a hundred hearings are not as good as one seeing" to witness with their own eyes how policies are put into practice? The policy is correct but must be implemented correctly in real life. The image of the Prime Minister going down to the people, checking specifically and in detail how local leaders serve the people while implementing social distancing; the Prime Minister's actions to check the readiness of the grassroots political system in serving the people have spread to many places and brought positive signals when people are struggling to fight the epidemic.