Currently Vietnam has seven doctors per 10,000 people, becoming one of the lowest ratios of doctor, patients in the world as a result of many short-comings in training, education and remuneration of doctors.
The Ministry of Health is seeking measures to reduce overload in hospitals in big cities. Besides increasing sickbeds and improved treatment, the number of doctors in a hospital also matter in reducing the overload in hospitals.
HCMC University of Medicine and Pharmacy has training capacity for 6,000 medical students. However, most of the trained doctors prefer to work in big cities and only a small minority opt to work in small towns.
One medical student from the HCMC University of Medicine and Pharmacy said that he needs to work in the city to improve his skills and earn more. For the same reasons, most of the skilled doctors choose to work in the city. Many doctors in local hospitals lack the knowledge and experience to handle complicated procedures, never having had the training.
One doctor from Long An Province with 20 years experience has decided to move to a big hospital in HCMC to improve his skills.
Likewise most of the skilled city doctors want to move to private hospitals or international hospitals on higher salaries.
According to a Ministry of Health report, there are about 4 doctors per 10,000 people in Dong Thap Province and about 3 doctors per 10,000 people in Lai Chau Province.
As per the World Health Organization, each country must have at least two nurses per 1,000 people. Ho Chi Minh City is lacking 6,000 nurses.
At a health conference on manpower resources, the Ministry of Health said that the country expects to train 976,033 health workers by 2015 and 78,000 doctors each year.
A representative from the Ministry of Health said that it is easy to understand why doctors want to work in big city hospitals.
The shortage could be partially relieved if local health clinics and hospitals were empowered to receive and treat patients who do not necessarily need to be transferred to city hospitals.
Low remunerations have been identified as one of the factors hindering recruitment of health professionals in the suburban districts of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Besides salaries, other factors such as poor working environment and inconvenient living conditions in outlying areas have also discouraged doctors from seeking employment far from big cities.
Shortage of medical staff in city hospitals has also put pressure on them to work extra hours with no special benefits.
PhD. Nguyen Tan Binh, principal of Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University said that they need to train many more students to meet the country’s present demand for medical personnel.
