Hanoi (VNA) – People deserve comprehensivehealthcare at the commune-level medical stations even when they are not ill andfor this to happen, the operation of these stations must to be standardised, Ministerof Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien has stressed.

The stations are now capable of providing vaccinationsand nutrition counselling but are bad at detecting, monitoring and treatingchronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, she told thelaunching ceremony of a training course on care for chronic diseases atcommune-level medical stations in Hanoi on July 9.

The grassroots healthcare system is failing to win publictrust as people hesitate to visit communal health clinics, largely becausethese establishments lack medicine and capable personnel, while the medicalcosts at the stations covered by national health insurance are low, Tien said.

The Ministry of Health has been piloting 26 standardisedcommunal health clinics in eight cities and provinces, including three inHanoi. These clinics have been provided with well-trained and experiencedmedical workers able to not only give health counselling, vaccinations andprimary medical checkups but also perform ultrasound scans or electrocardiogramtests and manage non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, high bloodpressure or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the minister noted.

She also said that the ministry has been facilitatingeducation for general practitioners and day-care services alongside home-basedhealthcare as an alternative to hospital admission. Furthermore, the ministryhas been working to develop a database of personal health records.

Speaking at the event, Dr. Jun Nakagawa from the WorldHealth Organisation said about 380,000 deaths a year in Vietnam result fromnon-communicable diseases (NCDs) and that NCDs are blamed for 73 percent of alldeaths nationwide. More than 40 percent of these deaths occur in people underthe age of 70, Nakagawa added.

The main reason behind this is the lack of care servicesfor non-communicable diseases at primary care providers, she said, stressingthe necessity to reform Vietnam’s primary healthcare sector.

Better management of non-communicable diseases can onlybe achieved by improving capacity of communal health clinics and a clearfinancial mechanism to allocate funds collected from service fees at theclinics is also required to motivate health workers, she added.

The training course is scheduled to take place in Hanoi,Ho Chi Minh City, Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa and Ca Mau, among other areas. –VNA