Health centre mergers require job reshuffle

 

HCM City (VNA) – More than 1,200 managers will need
new jobs when provincial centres for preventive health, HIV/AIDS, malaria and others
are merged into one general (CDC) in each province,
as required by the Ministry of Health by 2021.

Speaking at a recent meeting in Ho Chi Minh City, Pham Van Tac, head of the
ministry’s staff arrangement department, said it is necessary to establish the
CDCs, but provinces are now facing difficulties in finding new jobs for
laid-off managers.

The meeting, organised by the ministry, was held to provide guidance on a
government circular that outlines the functions, authority and organisational
structure of the provincial CDCs in the southern region. 

Each province has six preventive health centres which have a total of six
directors and 18 deputy directors. However, only one director and three deputy
directors will remain at each centre after the CDCs are formed.  

At least 1,200 managers will need new jobs, excluding the thousands of officers
in other departments such as administration, accounting staff and drivers.

Le Van Tam, Vice Chairman of the Can Tho People’s Committee, said the Mekong
Delta city has five preventive health centres, each of which has around 180
employees. The city has no choice but to wait for leaders to retire before the
new is completed, he said.

Ton That Ngoc Hanh, Vice Chairman of the Central Highland Dak Nong province’s
People’s Committee, said that since his province was established only 13 years
ago, the staffing issue is more serious as younger employees would not retire.

HCM City has seven preventive health centres, all of which will be gradually
closed and merged into the CDC before 2012, according to Nguyen Tan Binh, Director
of the HCM City’s Department of Health.

However, the city has many state-owned companies, so employees can be shifted
to other state-owned service units or medical establishments.

He said the municipal Department of Health would not appoint new people if
managers or directors at the centres retired from now to 2021.

At the conference, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long asked localities
to cut ineffective and unnecessary units but to retain the number of doctors at
preventive health centres.

Twenty-seven of the country’s 63 provinces and cities have already set up a CDC
by merging their preventive health centres, according to the ministry. 

Local authorities should embrace the changes, even if there are difficulties,
Long said, adding that the ministry is reforming the health care system to
provide better care for the public.-VNA