Director of the Department of Health: After a medical incident, doctors were 'hesitant' due to pressure from public opinion

On the morning of December 11, at the discussion session in the hall, Director of the Department of Health Duong Dinh Chinh answered some opinions of delegates about medical incidents that occurred in the province in the past and the orientation of the health sector in the coming time.

Director of the Department of Health Duong Dinh Chinh answered the delegates' opinions at the hall. Photo: Thanh Cuong

Delegate Nguyen Huu Cau - Director of Nghe An Provincial Police Department reflected that currently there is a situation where hospitals keep patients and do not transfer them to higher levels due to the need for benefits related to social insurance. The delegate suggested that the health sector should have strict regulations, consider and promptly and thoroughly resolve the needs of people when they need to transfer from district to provincial level, or from province to central level, so as not to let people feel frustrated and lose confidence.

Directly explaining the opinions of the delegates, Director of the Department of Health Duong Dinh Chinh said that despite efforts in the industry, the quality of medical examination and treatment, especially at the grassroots level such as hospitals in mountainous districts, has not met the expectations of the people.

Mr. Duong Dinh Chinh commented that these concerns are well-founded. In the current situation, provincial hospitals are overloaded, while the number of people coming to district hospitals and commune health stations for medical examination and treatment has not increased.

Explaining this cause, the leaders of the health sector said that there were both subjective and objective causes. The subjective causes stemmed from the capacity and experience of some medical staff at the grassroots level; training and development of human resources; and development of techniques that were not commensurate with their functions and tasks.

Objectively, the resources for the health sector have not met the requirements, especially in mountainous areas, where equipment is lacking and not enough to meet professional development. In addition, the story of attracting good doctors to the grassroots level still faces many obstacles. Although there have been many attraction policies such as Decision 01 of the Provincial People's Committee, those policies are still not strong enough to attract doctors to the grassroots level such as district level and commune health stations.

Meanwhile, the health sector currently has an excess of doctors, but cannot recruit doctors to work at the grassroots level. Therefore, commune health stations face many difficulties.

"The question is whether 90% of doctors at commune health stations meet the congress' target or not? In reality, that target has only been achieved at 75.5%, the remaining 15% are mainly being reinforced from district hospitals" - Director of the Department of Health Duong Dinh Chinh said.

In addition, the demand for medical examination and treatment of people is increasing, requiring high quality. This is also a great pressure for the staff and doctors in the health sector.

Presenting solutions for the coming time, Mr. Duong Dinh Chinh said that the health sector will actively increase investment in infrastructure and equipment, take advantage of all resources from the Central, provincial and local levels, especially for medical stations, it will focus on repairing and upgrading to meet the medical examination and treatment needs of the people.

Delegate Tran Dinh Toan asked about recent medical incidents in the province. Photo: Thanh Cuong

Regarding human resource training and development, the industry pays great attention and sets a big goal in 2020, in which it strives to develop high-quality human resources. It is expected that in 2020, 10 doctors will be trained abroad; as well as focusing on transferring high technology from the central level to the province. For the district level, the focus is on closely following the Satellite Hospital Project. All grassroots hospitals, especially district level, will be trained at the provincial level for free.

Regarding the recent medical incidents in the province, the Director of the Department of Health said that medical incidents are undesirable and unavoidable. However, Mr. Duong Dinh Chinh also said that after the incidents, doctors were "discouraged" due to pressure from public opinion.

The Director of the Department of Health requested that all levels, sectors and society always accompany and support the sector, and consider right and wrong thoroughly. At the same time, the health sector promises to make efforts in the coming time to meet the people's need for medical examination and treatment in the coming time./.