While tuberculosis (TB) continues to ravage Vietnam, plaguing four out of every 10 people, the country is facing a serious shortage of medical staff qualified to treat the disease.
Vietnam in desperate need of doctors to treat TB
"Vietnam is in desperate need of doctors who know how to treat TB. Currently, the ratio of doctors to citizens is only 1.58 for every 100,000, and the number of caregivers is 12 to every 100,000," said Associate Professor, Dr. Dinh Ngoc Sy, Director of Central Lung Hospital, who is also Chairman of National TB Prevention Programme. Sy made the statement at a meeting on TB prevention and treatment for the period of 2011-2015, held in HCM City on March 12.
Sy attributed the shortage to the fact that, despite efforts to train more medical staff to treat the disease, a high risk of infection, low income, and social stigma have discouraged many doctors entering the field.
"While TB has been spreading among young people, we find it difficult to train an adequate number medical personnel. Nearly half of medical workers who focus on TB prevention are untrained, while many remote areas have nobody at all to do this type of work," he noted.
The Director of Danang Hospital for Tuberculosis and Lung Disease said, “We have failed to recruit any new doctors who specialise in prevention of tuberculosis in the past decade. I'm worried that the number will continue to decrease for the next generation."
Under the current regulations, a medical staff in this particular field who give care to people in mountainous areas get an allowance of only VND150,000 (USD7.18) for 8 months of work, while those in other places receive VND100,000 (USD4.79).
In the meantime, a medical worker who gives TB checks get an allowance of VND30,000 (USD1.43) per month in mountainous communes, and VND20,000 (USD0.95) per month in lowland communes.
The lack of qualified doctors is creating favorable conditions for the disease's spread. Up to now, as many as 40% of Vietnam's population is infected. The country ranks 12th out of 22 countries having the largest number TB patients in the world. Every year, 30,000 Vietnamese people die of the disease, while 200,000 more people are newly infected.
Meanwhile, Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR TB) is mutating unpredictably. Around 5,000-6,000 TB patients, or 2.7% have a form of MDR TB. They face much higher risk of fatality without adequate treatment.
Under the National TB Prevention Program, Vietnam has set a target of reducing the number of TB patients by 50% by 2015 compared to the number of the year 2000, and hopes to eradicate the disease withing 30 years.
