Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan. (Photo: QH)

Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan has just sent a report to National Assembly Deputies on a number of issues related to the group of questions at the 8th session of the 15th National Assembly.

Minister Dao Hong Lan reflected on the shortage of human resources for practicing management work due to the need to streamline the payroll every year, having to work multiple tasks while the workload continues to increase.
“Most Departments of Health report a shortage of human resources for practicing management work, carrying out administrative procedures for granting operating licenses and practice permits, while the number of practitioners and medical examination and treatment facilities requiring practice licenses and operating permits is very large,” said Ms. Lan.

According to the Minister, inspection and examination work has not been regular and thorough, and has not mobilized all levels of government, relevant agencies and local people to participate in inspecting and supervising private medical examination and treatment activities.
Regarding solutions, the Minister affirmed that in the coming time, he will focus on implementing breakthrough solutions in licensing medical examination and treatment activities. At the same time, the sector will increase the number of appraisal teams by four times and double the personnel performing state management of granting practice licenses and operating licenses.
The Ministry of Health will also promote decentralization and delegation of authority in implementing administrative procedures. "After decentralization, it is expected that the Ministry of Health will reduce the number of administrative procedure files on granting practice licenses and operating licenses by about 70%," said Ms. Lan.
Regarding drug price management, according to the Minister, although the international market situation has many fluctuations, the synchronous implementation of drug price management measures has helped the pharmaceutical market "maintain stability", without speculation, hoarding, and pushing prices up.
However, according to Ms. Lan, the existing and limited point is that drug production facilities mainly focus on investing in the production of generic drugs with basic preparation technology. The scale of Vietnam's pharmaceutical enterprises is highly dispersed but the financial potential is small.
The Ministry of Health will continue to implement the Plan to apply the National Strategy for the Development of the Vietnamese Pharmaceutical Industry and the Program for the Development of the Pharmaceutical Industry and Medicinal Materials produced domestically./.