HCM City is in desperate need of qualified public medical workers as the sector is suffering from too low wages, one official has said.
Inadequate disease prevention causes serious consequences
Le Truong Giang, Chairman of the municipal Public Health Association, said most qualified medical workers had moved to work at treatment institutions. Others stayed as a last resort.
“Despite the importance of health provision, the city’s health sector is suffering a human resource deficiency. Public medical workers account for only 14% of total medical staff in the city. This means that on average every 10,000 people have to share around 2.6 public medical workers,” Giang noted.
Even though the National Assembly stipulates that investment in public health must account for 30% of the total investment in health services, the figure in HCM City reached only 25.8% for the 2009-2012 period.
Insufficient investment and substandard facilities have affected disease prevention by the municipal Preventive Medicine Centre, he said.
Due to low wages and no chance to work part time at treatment institutions, public medical workers have much lower incomes than other medical staff. Therefore, several have quit their jobs for better pay.
The trend has resulted in a fact that more attention have been paid to disease treatment rather than prevention.
