An overview of the National Assembly's meeting. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – National Assemblydeputies highlighted the need to clearly define the scale and tasks as well ascreate a legal foundation to ensure the efficiency of the operation and develop the family doctor model during the discussion of the draft amended Law on MedicalExamination and Treatment on June 13.
Nguyen Thi Hue, a deputy from Bac Kan province,said she agreed with the necessity to expand the family doctor model as mentionedin the draft law, saying the project has been implemented by the Ministry ofHealth during the 2016-2020 period with the goal of multiplying this model in theVietnamese health care system.
The family doctor model contributes to reducing the overloading at hospitals as well as the burden and workload for doctors while helping save hospitalisation and health insurance costs for patients, she said.
Hue pointed out problems that the model is facing suchas a lack of an information sharing mechanism between family doctors with the medicalsystem, uncontroled medical service fee and lack of coordination between familydoctors and referrals for patients.
She suggested that thehealth sector make assessment and determine the scope, functionsand tasks of the family doctor model to perfect this model.
There should be policy support to expand thefamily doctor model nationwide to increase personnel in the examination forpatients, Hue said.
Le Thu Ha, a NA deputy from Lao Cai province, shared Hue's view. The model has many advantages and worked well around the world,however, it has not received due attention in Vietnam.
She proposed that a legal foundation should becreated for the development of family doctor model to contribute to improvingthe quality of primary care in a comprehensive way and reduce the economic burdenfor both patients and society.
Regarding the assessment of the capacity ofpractitioners - one of the new points of the draft Law, delegate Le Van Cuongfrom Thanh Hoa province suggested that, before 2035, the roadmap for capacityassessment of practitioners should focus on doctors, nurses and midwives becausethese positions account for about 80 percent of the total number of humanresources in health facilities and meet most of the people's basic needs in medical examinationand treatment.
He called for appropriate measures tofacilitate human resource coordination, health insurance payment and treatment policies for medical workers when registering to work at manymedical facilities.
"This will be convenient for doctors athealth stations who can register for medical examination and treatment atdistrict hospitals half of the working time to improve their skills,”he said, adding that district hospital doctors can register to work at communalhealth stations to meet people's demand.
Cuong also underlined the need to supplement the draft law with apolicy on fee exemption or support the cost of the regular generalpractitioner system to improve the capacity of doctors at district hospitalsand solve the serious shortage of staff at communal health stations in thefuture./.
