Nghe An: Standardizing nearly 6,000 village health workers

(Baonghean.vn) - On October 28, the Provincial People's Committee held a meeting to listen to and give opinions on the Draft Proposal on promulgating Regulations on the number, standards, selection process, management unit and allowance payment for medical staff in villages, hamlets and hamlets. Comrade Dinh Thi Le Thanh, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee chaired the meeting.

This is an important meeting, aiming to issue decisions that will improve the quality of village health care.

Nghe An Health Sector is managing 5,746 medical staff/5,979 villages, hamlets, and blocks. In recent times, the village health team has played an important role in primary health care for the people, performing well the tasks of managing, monitoring, and caring for the health of mothers and children, especially in remote, isolated, and extremely disadvantaged areas.

However, the number of elderly and weak village and hamlet health workers accounts for a high proportion, with more than 10.18%, who do not meet the professional qualifications according to the training program framework of the Ministry of Health, and are not updated with professional knowledge, thus having many limitations in their work.

To standardize the medical staff of villages and hamlets to meet the primary health care needs of the people, the Department of Health advised the Provincial People's Committee to issue regulations on the number, standards, selection process, management unit and allowance payment for medical staff of villages, hamlets and hamlets in Nghe An province.

Leaders of Nghe An Department of Health presented the draft with many new points.

According to the draft, each village, hamlet, or hamlet can only select one person as a village health worker. In the case of villages with many ethnic minorities, one more village midwife will be assigned. Village health workers must have a primary level of medical education or higher, and have completed a training course of 3 months or more; village midwives must have a primary level of midwifery or higher.

Representatives of departments and branches participated in giving comments on the project; expressed concerns about the payment of allowances and the number of medical staff in villages and hamlets.

The allowance level applied to both medical staff and village midwives is equal to a coefficient of 0.55 and 0.35 compared to the basic salary according to current regulations. Village and commune medical staff who hold additional positions are entitled to 100% of the allowance for the additional position.

After listening to the comments of relevant departments, agencies and sectors, in her concluding remarks at the meeting, comrade Dinh Thi Le Thanh highly appreciated the preparation of the draft content by the Department of Health, and requested the Health sector to revise the document to soon submit it to the Provincial People's Committee for decision./.

Thanh Son