Improve healthcare system in mountainous areas
Ha Noi, Sept. 4 (VNA) -- The healthcare sector has worked out a plan to improve the healthcare system in nothern mountainous and central highlands provinces and make medical services accessible to all local people.
To this end, the training of highly qualified medical workers for these areas is an important measure.
Though the northern mountainous and central highland provinces, home to more than 50 minority groups, have seen considerable socio-economic progess, its healthcare service is still poor.
The region's morality and mulnutrition rates are higher than the national averages and Central Highlands provinces have the highest rates of malaria (18 percent of the population), leprosy, tuberculosis, goitre, and infectious diseases in the country.
To date, only 39.3 percent of all communes in Central Highlands provinces have medical doctors with an average of 3.5 doctors for every 10,000 people, and 306 out of 478 communes have no infirmaries.
To raise the highlanders' healthcare level to that of people nationwide, various healthcare programmes must be launched simultaneously to improve medical provision, epidemic prevention, ensure food security, and raise local people's knowlege about health. These programmes must focus on the poor and medical insurance.
To strengthen the medical system at the grassroots level by applying a reasonable and flexible policy on training of medical workers for the area and require a greater investment from the state budget.
To meet requirements of each locality, various forms of training courses will be organized for medical workers mainly consisting of local and minority people. Incentives will be given to those who voluntarily to work in northern mountainous and Central Highlands provinces.
More attention will be paid to post-graduate training for doctors working at provincial and district hospitals, especially those specialzing in obstetrics, paediatrics, internal medicine, and surgery.
The Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy, the Ha Noi Medical College and the Hue Medical College have been urged to futher cooperation with local medical schools in this training.--VNA
