$76m project launched to improve health staff

The Ministry of Health has started a US$76 million project to improve training facilities at 18 medical universities and colleges in the next five years.

This is because more than 3,000 health clinics throughout Vietnam – one- third of the total number of clinics nationwide – have no doctors.

The ministry said training facilities had not kept pace with demand caused by the population boom.

"The project, backed by the Asian Development Bank and the Government of Australia, intends to train another 11,000 nurses, 4,000 midwives and 600 lecturers for universities and colleges by the end of 2015," said project director Tran Quoc Kham at a launching ceremony in Hanoi yesterday.

He also said that 200 health-care institutions throughout the nation would be supplied with higher level staff.

Nearly 6,000 ethnic minority people will also be trained so that they can work in remote areas.

The project will focus on improving the planning and management of human resources, strengthening the quality of training for medical staff and improving the management of health services.

Statistics from the Health Ministry show that Vietnam had 40.5 medical staff for every 10,000 people in 2008 compared with 43.1 in 1986.

The ministry plans to raise this to 41 medical staff (eight doctors and two pharmacists) per 10,000 people by 2015 and 52 medical staff (10 doctors and 2.5 pharmacists) per 10,000 people by 2020.

This means the sector needs to train a further 28,000 medical staff by 2015 and 500,000 by 2020.

Kham said that $15 million would be spent in 2011 with the focus on upgrading laboratories, teaching facilities, libraries and human-resource management units for universities and colleges.