Under the national preventive medical strategy approved by the Government Prime Minister, Vietnam will need an additional 5,500 preventive medical workers with university degrees, 1,000 post-graduate medical staff members and 4,200 technicians and nurses involved in preventive medical work.

However, according to health experts, despite the healthcare and education sectors sparing no effort to train preventive medical workers, they are failing to reach the set targets. What measures will policy makers devise to tackle the issue?

Dire shortage, low capacity

“The quantity and quality of preventive medical workers is a big problem that needs to be addressed,” said Dr. Nguyen Huy Nga, Head of the Preventive Medical Department under the Ministry of Health.

Current investment in preventive medical activities accounts for only 25 percent of the total spending for medical activities, meeting just 30 percent of demand. In Vietnam, the number of people infected with contagious diseases remains high. Every year, the country has around 3.5 million people contracting contagious diseases such as flu, tuberculosis, malaria and the virus hepatitis but it is facing a serious shortage of preventive medical workers at all levels.

According to statistics, each district-level preventive medical centre is staffed by only 20, (short of 15). At hospitals under the Ministry of Health, only 68.1 percent of leaders have masters and nearly 75 percent of preventive medical workers have not yet been professionally trained.

Under the plan from now till 2010, the healthcare sector is striving to reach 30 percent of preventive medical workers with a masters and 60 percent of staff to be trained specifically in hygiene and epidemiology and community-based healthcare. However, the health sector has had difficulty in reaching the set target as the training of preventive medical workers has only just re-started in 2006. Therefore, nearly 400 students will have graduated from medical universities throughout the country by 2011 while the demand for preventive medical workers will be 5,500 by 2010.

According to Mr Truong Viet Dung from the Science and Training Department under the Ministry of Health, the training of preventive medical workers is encountering a lot of difficulties due to a lack of experience and resources and limitations in quantity and quality of lecturers.

Equipment and facilities are old, not meeting training demands.  Despite high demand for human resources in preventive medicine, most students follow other specialities, instead of preventive medicine.

According to an official from the Science and Training Department of the Ministry of Health, universities should open training courses on preventive medicine, especially for preventive medicine doctors at communal levels, so that 10 universities can train about 2,000 doctors by 2010.

Sharing the same view, another lecturer from the Ho Chi Minh City Medicine and Pharmacy University said currently many doctors and physicians who are working at preventive medical centers do not have preventive medical qualifications. The ministry should plan to train these doctors and physicians because three-quarters of them will work in the preventive medical sector.

It is necessary to standardize preventive medical workers at centers. However, to train these workers effectively, the ministry has to devise specific procedures and support policies, as well as improve facilities to universities, a representative from the Thai Binh Medicine University.

Nguyen Son Ha, deputy director of the Lang Son Department of Public Health, said no individual can take part in the preventive medical sector so that the ministry should carefully calculate training scale.

Deputy Minister of Health Trinh Quan Huan said it is too late to train preventive medical workers, but better late than never, as providing healthcare services to citizens is very important. The ministry will consider open training programmes with a target of training around 70 percent of physicians at preventive medical centers. The ministry will also provide necessary facilities to universities to run training programmes. Furthermore, the Hanoi Medicine University will coordinate with the Department of Science and Training to build a curriculum and compile textbooks.