A medical worker gives a vaccination to a child in Hanoi. (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - This year, the healthcare sector aims to reducedeath rates caused by diseases and epidemics to increase life expectancy.
That was the key objective discussed by the healthcare sector during an onlineconference held on January 15.
The sector would focus on improving capacity and performance to help develop afair, effective, quality and sustainable system to meet high demands of people.
This year, the sector has to fulfil two targets set by the National Assemblyand the Government of ratio of 2.7 hospital beds per 10,000 persons, and 88.1 percentof people buying medical insurances, heard the conference.
In terms of preventive healthcare activity, the sector would strive to achieveearly detection and control epidemics to reduce death rates by infectiousdisease as well as closely supervise and prevent infectious plagues atinternational border gates to avoid disease coming into the country.
It continued to make efforts to ensure safe vaccinations with the rate of 95 percentof children vaccinated, ensure adequate vaccine supply, and develop differenttypes of vaccination services for people.
The Health Ministry plans to cooperate with the Education and Training Ministryto enhance capacity of school clinics, supervise school hygiene and controlschool-related diseases.
Testing activities to detect HIV-infected people would be expanded and focus onkey areas and high-risk groups in prisons and mountainous areas throughcommunity-based and at home HIV testing. The sector strives to discover about8,000-10,000 cases of HIV this year.
The HIV/AIDS treatment would be improved and distributed to 140,000 patients,and provide ARV medicine to the grassroots clinics.
The sector would continue to mobilise financial resources for HIV/AIDSprevention and control activities, and expand treatment through medicalinsurance.
Measures to reduce overcrowded hospitals and increase quality of healthcareservices would be a priority.
This year’s objective includes food safety inspections at both production andretail levels.
In the meeting reviewing the national action plan on drug resistant preventionheld in Hanoi on January 14, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Viet Tien warnedthat indiscriminate drug use and the purchase of drugs without prescriptionwould contribute to increasing antibiotic resistance which caused harm to thewhole community.
“The leading cause of drug resistance came from buying and selling antibioticsso easily and without doctors’ prescriptions”, Tien told the meeting.
"Vietnam is in a group of countries with a high rate of antibioticresistance, even worse than many countries,” the deputy minister said.
Using drugs without doctor’s instructions had many risks, includingmulti-antibiotic resistant bacteria which has been spreading from one countryto another threatening human health, said Tien.
In order to overcome the antibiotic resistance, Tiến said each person shouldraise awareness about effective use of drugs, including antibiotics, forthemselves and the community as well as follow doctors’ instruction andprescriptions.
In addition, it wasnecessary to raise the responsibilities of those who are entitled to use drugsincluding doctors and pharmacists to strictly control the prescription and drugsales, the doctor said.
Meanwhile, Luong Ngoc Khue, head of the Medical Examination and TreatmentDepartment, pointed out six main reasons for the drug resistance situation in Vietnam.
Those were unreasonably prescribing antibiotics with too low or too high dosesor not depending on microbiological test results or prolonged uses; patientsusing antibiotics without prescription; misuse of antibiotics in aquaculture;inadequate infection control in health facilities and farms; lack of properplastic waste disposal facilities; and the lack of new invented antibiotics.
Work on drug resistance prevention has exposed weaknesses including lack ofcooperation, limited awareness of the community, health and agriculturalworkers to drug resistance is generally limited and modest capacity of themicrobiological system, said Khue. – VNS/VNA
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