70% of nurses do not meet training standards

Chairman of the Vietnam Nursing Association Pham Duc Muc commented that currently, the team of nurses and midwives in Vietnam is both lacking in quantity and weak in quality. In particular, up to 70% of nurses and midwives have not met the training standards recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

At the conference to implement the National Action Program to strengthen nursing and midwifery work from 2013 to 2020, organized by the Ministry of Health on the morning of May 29 in Hanoi, Mr. Muc emphasized that currently, Vietnam only has 30% of nurses and midwives with university or college degrees - equivalent to the training standards recommended by WHO. Meanwhile, up to 70% of nurses and midwives have intermediate qualifications.

Mr. Muc cited that the ratio of nurses and midwives in Vietnam is nearly 12 people/10,000 people. Compared to many countries in the region, the above ratio in Vietnam is lower such as Malaysia (18/10,000), Thailand (28/10,000) and the Philippines (61/10,000).

At the conference, Deputy Minister of Health Le Quang Cuong said that in recent years, the cause of caring for and protecting people's health has achieved great achievements in all areas of disease prevention, treatment, drug supply and development of the grassroots health network. These are extremely important factors contributing to the achievement of some of the main targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to health.

Mr. Cuong emphasized that in the general achievements, there is a great contribution of the team of nurses and midwives in implementing the goals of the health sector, especially in improving the quality of treatment and patient care, as well as in overcoming negative attitudes and actions that people are commenting on.

However, Deputy Minister Cuong also emphasized that currently, nursing and midwifery work in Vietnam still has some limitations such as the initiative of nurses and midwives in clinical practice has not been clearly defined, and nursing and midwifery practice in patient care has not been clearly differentiated according to training degrees and civil servant ranks.

In particular, the nursing and midwifery sector currently lacks a team of leading experts, and the number of nurses and midwives trained at the postgraduate level is very limited. Meanwhile, leaders of some units have not paid enough attention to investing resources in this work.

Another difficulty is that the nursing team's communication, IT and foreign language skills are still limited, affecting patient satisfaction, access to advanced science and technology as well as regional and international integration.

To overcome the above limitations, the Ministry of Health has implemented a national action program to comprehensively enhance the capacity of nursing and midwifery staff from 2013 to 2017. The biggest goal set by the program is to strive for 100% of the nursing and midwifery staff to have college and university degrees within the next 7 years.

Regarding solutions in the coming time, Director of the Department of Medical Examination and Treatment Management Luong Ngoc Khue said that the Ministry of Health will promote the completion of policies related to recruitment, encouragement and appropriate treatment for the two above subjects working at the grassroots level, in remote villages and mountainous areas with difficulties.

In addition, the Ministry of Health will coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training and the People's Committees of provinces and cities to continue directing and upgrading medical colleges to colleges; opening more training facilities with sufficient conditions to enhance training of nurses and midwives with university and college degrees.

Regarding financial resources, the Ministry of Health has proposed a solution to allocate a separate budget for nursing and midwifery work in the health sector's career budget at all levels and at health facilities to ensure continuous training. Regarding international cooperation, Mr. Khue emphasized that the health sector will promote the expansion of cooperation with international organizations to have more resources and technical support for nursing and midwifery work in Vietnam./.

According to (Vietnam+) - M.D