Illustrative image (Photo: VNA) discussing employment for took place in
Hanoi on August 21.
The event attracted leaders of municipal and provincial
health departments, eye hospitals from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho, Phu
Tho and Ha Dong, educational establishments and international organisations in
the field.
Tran Viet Hung, deputy head of the Health Ministry’s Personnel
Organisation Department, said Vietnam now records about 2 million blind and
visually-impaired people. Over 80 percent of blind cases could be prevented or
treated.
Currently, short-sighted, long-sighted and astigmatism cases are
becoming popular, amounting to 15 – 40 percent of the population, or about 14-
36 million patients. For children aged 6 – 15, the rate of refraction cases is 25
– 40 percent in urban areas and 10 – 15 percent in rural areas.
The International Agency for
the Prevention of Blindness recommended that there should be a refraction
services provider per 50,000 people. However, there are only 39 standard
service providers in Vietnam.
Since 2012, the Hanoi Medical
University and the Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine have offered
refraction ophthalmology courses with the first contingent of bachelors
graduating in October last year. About 300 students are studying in the two
universities.
Participants at the event shared
models for eye treatment, measures to effectively tap the role of refraction ophthalmology
bachelors in order to highlight the need to build regulations on job titles for
them.-VNA
Source: VietnamPlus
