A medical worker gives advice to a resident in Hanoi. (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – The Ministry
of Health and the in Vietnam held a workshop in Hanoi on March 27 to
discuss the orientations for developing grassroots healthcare in the new
context.
Deputy Minister of Health Do Xuan
Tuyen said the Party, National Assembly, and Government have issued many
policies to improve grassroots healthcare, including
Directive 06-CT/TW on consolidating grassroots healthcare, issued by the 9th Party Central Committee’s Secretariat on
January 22, 2002.
The Secretariat has assigned the ministry’s Party Civil Affairs Committee to draft
a directive on developing grassroots healthcare in the new context. The draft
should be submitted to the Secretariat in May, he noted.
After 20 years of implementing Directive 06-CT/TW, Party committees and
administrations from the central to grassroots levels have showed considerable
improvements in the awareness of the importance of . Communities consider the consolidation of grassroots healthcare
as a crucial task in socio-economic development plans.
A medical worker gives check-up to a patient at the Hospital of Traditional Medicine in Lai Chau province. (Photo: VNA)As a result, basic health indexes of
Vietnamese people have improved remarkably after 20 years. For example, the
average life expectancy increased from 71.3 in 2002 to 73.6 in 2022, higher
than the global average of 73 and many countries with the similar per capita
income level. The coverage of essential reached 70 out of 100
points in 2020, higher than the average of 61 in Southeast Asia and 67 in the
world. Vietnam has also gained respect from the international community for
its realisation of the Millennium Development Goals.
Those achievements were largely
contributed by the grassroots healthcare network, participants opined.
However, there remains certain shortcomings, they pointed out, elaborating that
grassroots health services are focused on treatment while lacking due attention
to disease prevention, management, and early detection. The system is also
facing numerous challenges such as rapid population aging, an increase in
non-communicable diseases, and unpredictable developments of new
epidemics.
They agreed on measures mentioned in the draft directive, including enhancing
Party committees and administrations’ sense of responsibility, upgrading infrastructure, reforming communal-level
medical facilities and financial mechanism, increasing manpower
for grassroots healthcare, and stepping up health education./.
Source: VietnamPlus
