Hospitals seek to improve workers' behaviour

Five more southern hospitals – Cho Ray, Thong Nhat, Nhan Dan 115 and Paediatrics 1, besides Can Tho General – have committed to improve health workers' behaviour towards patients.

The five southern medical facilities signed a commitment on August 3, following a move by the Ministry of Health in April to improve the satisfaction of patients and the reputation of the Vietnamese health worker.

Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said the move was a vital task of the Vietnamese health sector to ensure ethics in the sector, which had deteriorated due to the misbehavior of several doctors and health workers with their patients.

Tien said all health workers, ranging from security guards, motor and car keepers, cashiers and pharmacists, as well as doctors and nurses needed to be trained on medical ethics, particularly their task to ensure the comfort of patients.

The MoH on August 3 held training courses for 400 representatives from southern hospitals and units, on communication, contact and reception skills. Plans to set up and operate health hotlines were also one of the key targets of the courses.

Nguyen Xuan Truong, Chief of the MoH's office, said in the first six months of this year, the ministry's hotline received about 8,000 calls via 1900- 9095, about 12 percent of which were complaints about health workers' attitudes.

Truong said the complaints had reduced by 7 percent compared with the same period last year.

He said almost all the complaints had been examined and several health workers were penalised.

Earlier this month, the four central hospitals in the North – Bach Mai, Viet Duc, Cancer and Paediatrics hospitals – signed a commitment to improve health workers' attitudes towards patients at a conference held in Hanoi.

They were the country's first medical facilities to sign such a commitment.

"A section of healthcare workers still do not follow professional processes and have inappropriate or negative attitudes towards patients in hospitals," Tien said at the conference.

Tien said this would badly impact the image of the country's healthcare workers and destroy people's belief in more than 400,000 health workers nationwide.

The Health Minister asked all health workers and staff to overcome their difficulties and be determined to improve their image.-VNA