Promoting positive changes in public healthcare services

Vietnamese people are more satisfied with public healthcare services compared with previous years, including better quality of public hospitals at grassroots level and healthcare for under six-year old children, acknowledging significant efforts of the health sector.

Positive trends in public service delivery were announced at the 2016 Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index, known as PAPI, released in early April. It assessed experiences and feelings of over 14,000 citizens from 63 provinces and cities with national and sub-national government performance in governance, public administration and public service delivery.

People are more satisfied with public health services than they were earlier

In the area of health sector, people are more satisfied with public health services than they were earlier, and the rate of people taking bribes to access public healthcare services dropped from 43% in 2015 to 39% in 2016.

Despite significant disparities in the assessment of respondents from different localities, their positive response is a good sign for the health sector.

The quality of public health services has always been a hot topic in recent years with many emerging issues such as drug safety, medical accident, attitude and behaviour of medical workers, and monitoring and caring patients, among others.

In 2016, the health sector concentrated efforts on implementing solutions to improve the quality of medical examination and treatment and to renovate the style of service towards the satisfaction of the people. One of the solutions said to be effective is the set of criteria on the quality of Vietnamese hospitals issued by the Ministry of Health, which has become the quality assessment tool for hospitals applied to all medical establishments nationwide.

After applying this set of criteria, a majority of hospitals have made positive changes including better care for patients, improved quality of human resources and working conditions at hospitals, and better spiritual and material life for medical workers, among others.

The improvements to quality of public health services will contribute significantly to the quality of healthcare for the people.

Improving public health service is not only an important task but also a big challenge for Vietnam in the current difficult conditions.

Besides promoting accomplished achievements, the health sector also needs a comprehensive reform on organisation, human resources, and finance to further improve the quality of health services, reach universal health insurance, and renew patient feedback mechanism for better healthcare services and so on.

In addition, all medical workers need to improve professional skills and focus on the aspect of moral qualities to better care for patients.

(Source: NDO)