Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry of Health on June 12 announced that representatives of the ministry and the United State Agency for International Development (USAID) had a session to exchange information and plans to implement subsequent consultations to identify priority contents on initial and grassroots-level health care.
Associate Professor Phan Le Thu Hang from the ministry highly valued USAID’s efforts over the recent years in supporting Vietnam’s healthcare sector, especially in the fight against TB, HIV, and COVID-19.
Bilateral cooperation over the recent past is assessed as effective and the USAID, with its strength in technology and finance, has become one of the important partners of Vietnam’s healthcare sector.
In the current period, the medical system is facing numerous new challenges, including the changes of the disease structure with the rapid increase of non-contagious diseases, the ageing of the population, the speedy increase in the need for health care coupled with the rise of the medical healthcare costs, the adverse impact of climate change, and the increase of the threats to medical security caused by new endemics.
Hang highlighted that Vietnam has been taking initial and grassroots-level health care is key to the goal of covering of universal health care, and developing the grassroots-level medical system. These are taken as the top priority of the medical system, and that is why over the recent past, many important policies on the matter have been issued, including Directive No, 25 of the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat, Decision No 281 of the Prime Minister, and most recently Decision 1093 of the Ministry of Health.
The official also briefed participants on prominent contents of the policy and elaborated the focuses of priorities to be implemented.
The two sides discussed cooperation potential to raise the capacity of Vietnam’s grassroots-level medical system in the time to come.
The representative of the ministry also raised a number of proposals for the USAID to consider for support to Vietnam in its efforts to develop and renovate the country’s grassroots-level medical system. They include the supply of initial healthcare services; and the analysis, assessment, perfection, and expansion of the models of creative initial healthcare services piloted at a number of localities, especially that of the management and curing of a number of non-contagious diseases at commune-level clinics.
Besides, she also touched upon the matters of the development of the medical human resources, including the re-education and continuous education for the grassroots-level medical staff, the acceleration of the application of information technology and digital transformation for the grassroots-level medical system, focusing on the improvement of the database, the adaptability of the software, and the improvement of the ability of the grassroots-level medical staff in data analysis.
At the session, the two sides reach a consensus on the continuation of the exchange of information and the holding of subsequent consultations to identify priority contents related to the initial and grassroots-level health care that the USAID can assist Vietnam’s healthcare sector in the time to come./.
