Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam: Do not let people lose confidence in vaccines

On the afternoon of January 15, the Ministry of Health held an online conference on “Deploying health care work in 2019”. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam and Minister of Health Nguyen Kim Tien chaired the conference.

Nghe An bridge point was co-chaired by Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Le Minh Thong and Director of the Department of Health Duong Dinh Chinh. Attending the conference were leaders of medical units in the province.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam speaks at the conference.

In 2018, the entire health sector from the central to local levels strived to achieve and exceed 9/11 basic health targets, notably the target of the number of hospital beds per 10,000 people reaching 26.5 (assigned 26.0) and the health insurance participation rate reaching 87.7% (assigned 85.2%).

The health sector has implemented synchronous solutions to reduce overload, improve the quality of medical examination and treatment services, expand the network of satellite hospitals, connect test results, diagnose, enhance the application of science and technology, and transfer techniques. People's satisfaction with health services is increasing.

In 2019, the health sector set the following goals: Reduce morbidity and mortality due to diseases and epidemics, contribute to increasing life expectancy, improving basic health indicators of the people; improve the capacity and efficiency of the health system, create a solid foundation for developing a fair, effective, quality and sustainable health system, meeting the health care needs of all classes of people.

Nghe An bridge attended the online conference. Photo: Thanh Chung

Speaking at the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam praised the comprehensive, inheritable and sustainable results that the health sector has achieved, especially the results in health insurance coverage. The Deputy Prime Minister requested: In 2019, health care must be better than in 2018.

Specifically, the health sector needs to continue to promote the development of health insurance coverage, must ensure to exceed the assigned targets, strive for all people to have health insurance. The health sector needs to coordinate and unify with the social insurance sector to have a health insurance payment mechanism at the grassroots level, in line with the spirit of preventive medicine being the main, and grassroots medicine being the foundation.

The health sector needs to strengthen the capacity of medical examination and treatment in hospitals from top to bottom. In particular, there must be clear regulations for autonomous units so that these units do not chase after revenue and profit, ensuring the spirit of public health is to serve. Hospital resources and insurance revenue are for developing technology and medicine to save people.

In 2019, the health sector will continue to focus on primary health care, strengthen district and commune health care; build a health insurance payment mechanism at district and commune levels; and ensure a balance between prevention and treatment activities.

The health sector needs to strongly apply information technology, especially promoting remote consultation to improve human resource training; having a program to connect pharmacies is mandatory, so that all people know the origin, quality and price of drugs.

Any place that does not implement a pharmacy connection program needs to be held accountable. In addition, it is necessary to soon build a program for grassroots health management and unified public health management, following a bottom-up approach.

The provincial Center for Preventive Medicine inspects the screening work before injecting the ComBE Five vaccine. Photo: Hong Son

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam emphasized: In 2018 - 2019, the health sector had an unavoidable change in expanded immunization vaccines when Quinvaxem vaccine, also known as "5 in 1" vaccine, stopped production and switched to ComBE Five vaccine produced by India as directed by the sponsorship program.