"Difficult" human resources in the health sector

(Baonghean) - In recent times, the province has had many preferential policies to attract and train university doctors and pharmacists for public health facilities. However, in reality, there are many facilities that find it difficult to attract staff to work, especially specialized health facilities or district-level facilities..

Doctors at Nghe An Tuberculosis and Lung Hospital examine patients.

“22 years to recruit 3 doctors”

This story takes place at Nghe An Psychiatric Hospital, a special unit of the health sector. Currently, the hospital has 7 departments with a scale of 245 beds but the actual number is up to more than 300 beds.

Therefore, the policy for medical staff working here also has special incentives such as working hours per day shorter than the prescribed administrative hours, and salaries paid about one and a half times higher than those of non-special public hospitals. However, this unit is very difficult to recruit doctors, although the province has issued many preferential mechanisms.

Clip of Director of Nghe An Mental Hospital talking about human resources issue:

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According to Resolution No. 34/2011 of the Provincial People's Council on a number of policies for developing human resources for public health in Nghe An province, doctors and pharmacists who have graduated from regular universities with excellent or fair grades and have worked at the Mental Hospital for 5 years or more will receive financial support equivalent to 16 times the minimum wage;...

Currently, out of the total number of 195 assigned staff, the hospital only has 166, including 24 doctors, 3 nursing bachelors, 13 nursing college graduates, 54 nursing intermediate graduates, 17 medical doctors, and 7 nurses. The number of doctors is still short of about 20 people if based on the bed ratio. In addition, the hospital is in great need of nurses to take care of patients. However, each department only has one nurse, so it is very difficult, while the source of nurses is not recruited.

Doctor Phan Kim Thin - Director of Nghe An Mental Hospital said that it took 22 years, specifically from 1993 to 2015, for the unit to recruit 3 doctors with formal university degrees. To meet the demand for medical examination and treatment, the unit has sent 3 medical staff to train to become doctors, who have now graduated, and is sending 7 more medical staff to train to become doctors.

Recently, the number of doctors applying for jobs at the hospital has increased. “The hospital currently has 5 to 6 applications for recruitment. Therefore, the source of doctors to be recruited is not as urgent as in the past few decades. However, if we want to recruit general practitioners and graduates with good grades or higher, it is very difficult. Because the applications we have are mainly for traditional medicine and preventive medicine.”

Dr. Pham Thi Hoa, newly recruited to work at Hung Nguyen General Hospital, is examining a patient.

At Hung Nguyen District General Hospital, it is determined that recruiting doctors is very difficult, so in addition to the attraction policies of the province and district, the hospital also proactively proposes "incentive" mechanisms for doctors to work such as: immediately upon starting work, they will be supported with 2 million VND, arranged inpatient rooms without electricity and water bills, and enjoy full welfare regimes even though the working time is short; the hospital directly sends people to do the admission procedures within just one week;...

Clip of the director of Hung Nguyen District General Hospital talking about human resources issues:

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Therefore, in 2015, this unit recruited 4 doctors, including 2 general practitioners and 2 traditional medicine doctors after many years of not being able to recruit doctors. However, with a scale of 100 beds and an actual number of 135 beds, there are only 22 doctors.

Not meeting minimum standards

Faced with that situation, the Provincial People's Council issued Resolution No. 34/2011 on a number of policies for developing public health human resources in the province with many preferential mechanisms for attracting and training doctors and pharmacists. And, Decision No. 370/2012 approved the Project: "Developing human resources for doctors and pharmacists at university and post-graduate levels in the health sector in Nghe An province for the period 2012 - 2020 (Project 370).

After 4 years of implementing Project 370, the recruitment of doctors reached 100% of the set target. However, according to the analysis of the health sector, there is a difference between levels. While the recruitment of doctors at the provincial level reached 173.8% of the plan, the district level only reached 66% of the plan, the commune level reached 64%. The recruitment of university pharmacists only reached 60% of the plan, of which the provincial level only reached 54%, the district level reached 68%.

Regarding the overall human resources of the provincial health sector, in the document sent to the Department of Home Affairs and the Provincial People's Committee regarding the establishment of the staffing plan and the number of employees in 2016, the Department of Health said that the number of employees assigned in the entire sector has not met the minimum standards, which significantly affects the quality of medical examination and treatment.

Accordingly, the health sector has assigned 10,637 people as of April 2015. Meanwhile, to meet the minimum demand to perform the assigned tasks (calculated by hospital beds, population size), the total number of employees required is 13,142 people. Thus, the health sector is still short of at least 2,515 people.

Nowadays, diseases and epidemics are constantly changing and tend to become more complex. The need for medical examination, treatment and health care of the people is increasing. Therefore, in the face of the above situation, it is necessary to have an appropriate direction to ensure human resources of the health sector, especially for specific units, district and commune levels.

Nhat Le