According to the report of WHO (2006), in the context of less than 2.3 doctors, nurses and midwives per 100.000 people, Vietnam is the country in the shortage of medical professionals. It is also the real condition for over 57 nations all over the world. Many factors cause this including different levels in economic development among nations, the outbreak of old and new pandemics and increasing emigration of medical professionals due to unequal working conditions, salary and promotion. Regarding the human resources problem, according to experts in the workshop, the lack of medical human resources and the quality of medical professionals do not meet health care needs of people at present. It is an urgent problem of the world and Vietnam as well. Central and highland provinces with economic difficulties also lack high qualified, professional medical staff. According to Asso. Prof. Vo Van Thang-Dean of Faculty of Public Health-Research Director of ICCCHR, every year Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy educates 6.700 general doctors, 2.800 pharmacists, 5000 BA of Nursing graduates, BA of medical technology graduates, BA of Public Health graduates and 5.100 post-graduates. Although this capacity will increase by two times by 2020, it may not meet the need of medical professionals excluding 12.000 retirees each year.
The inappropriate distribution among areas was highlighted as in the example that 60% of doctors work in urban areas (HCM city has about 12.4 doctors/person) while urban population only accounts for 28.4% which leads to the unequal distribution among areas. This is a problem that needs solving especially in difficult regions and such less attractive fields as Medical Prevention, pediatrics, tuberculosis, psychiatry…Concurrently, it is necessary to balance the personnel distribution at all levels as the present report on provincial personnel indicates that 81.8% of staff work in treatment role, while only 13% is preventive personnel, only 25% of those were educated medical prevention. At the district level, the number of medical preventive professionals meets only a half of the real need (according to Ha Noi School of Public Health-2012).
Another problem is that personnel education at universities and training organizations are not balanced. A number of majors require development so that they meet the real condition for care and treatment for people. Learning about the needs of education and the use of medical personnel in different regions is a duty for training units.
In the workshop, all participants listened and shared experiences and constructive ideas of representatives on the above problems especially recording the viewpoint of non-vietnamese experts in this field for example ones from Queensland University of Technology (Australia), Sassari University (Italy), AP…
Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy-Hue University- the education and training unit providing the largest number of medical personnel in the central and highland area-presented and committed to implement according to orientations, solutions of linking and developing education that meets the need of medical personnel in the region, with national medicine contributes to improve the quality of medical examination and treatment for people.