This is the concern risen by Director of the HCMC Health Department Tang Chi Thuong in yesterday session of the 6th session of the 10th tenure HCMC People’s Council.
Answering the concern of the delegate from Binh Chanh District, Director Tang Chi Thuong affirmed that HCMC still has sufficient Covid-19 vaccine doses for its residents, and is now injecting around 50,000 doses per day for eligible people.
As to BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants in Vietnam, the Health Ministry has reported a slight increase in Covid-19 infections lately in various locations, including HCMC from under 30 cases a day to over 50 cases. Therefore, the Director said that, when necessary, the city will re-activate the pandemic fighting system.
More worrying now is the severe dengue outbreak in HCMC, leading to possible overlapping pandemic. The current dengue case count in the city is nearly 22,000 (a rise of 184 percent compared to this time last year) and 11 deaths, while this figure of previous years was less than 10.
Director Thuong emphasized the importance of all localities determinedly destroying all possible containers of mosquito larvae to control the outbreak; otherwise, this outbreak will be even more serious. With the great effort of vaccinating eligible people and eliminating containers of mosquito larvae, the situation can become better.
The second medical issue is the risk of lack of medication and medical equipment. At present, most medical facilities have completed the bidding for medicines to common diseases. In July, HCMC establishes a trading center for medication and medical equipment especially for any facilities without the capacity to hold bidding. The HCMC Health Department will prioritize medication bidding for grassroots clinics.
The third and most worrying issue is the shortage of human resources in the public healthcare sector, mainly because the salary is too low for them to feel at ease working in public medical facilities. Only in 18 months from last year, more than 2,000 employees quitted their jobs, 500 of whom are doctors and 700-800 nurses.
“The Health Ministry and the Government are aware of this fact and developing suitable policies for the medical staff. HCMC is preparing its own methods to boost the growth of its medical collaborator network to offer initial healthcare for the community in localities”, said Director Thuong.
In the near future, the HCMC Health Department is going to introduce a pandemic prevention and monitoring channel for the public to report any cases of neglect of carelessness in applying disease prevention measures.
