It is my great pleasure to be part of this important meeting and to hear about your efforts to strengthen the capacity of leaders and managers in the health sector.
Improving the quality of the human resources – both technical and managerial – is crucial to designing and implementing health system reforms that will improve service delivery and help Viet Nam attain its goal of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
We are encouraged to see that the Government recognizes this, and is tackling its health workforce challenges from multiple angles. The training that we’ll hear about this morning is one of a number of important efforts already underway to strengthen the health workforce.
You are reforming your undergraduate health professionals’ education programmes, developing postgraduate training programmes in line with international best practice, and building the skills of your existing health workforce – across the entire health system – through in-service training.
You have also recognized the need to build the management capacity of your health officers at various levels of the system – commune health stations, district health centers and district hospitals, provincial health departments, provincial CDCs, provincial hospitals, central hospitals and the Ministry of Health at both at advisory department and functional administration levels.
While improving the capacity of your current and future grassroots health workforce remains at the core of your efforts to strengthen primary health care towards the goal of UHC, a well-functioning grassroots health workforce depends on competent health managers across the entire health system.
Merging the district health centre and district hospital into a single entity requires district health directors with leadership and managerial skill understanding both public health and clinical medicine.
Merging many small or medium sized provincial public health institutions into a single provincial CDC requires provincial CDC directors with leadership and managerial skills as well as an understanding of many different areas of public health and different levels of health policy.
Providing more autonomy to public hospitals requires hospital directors with leadership and managerial skills and an understanding of many different fields of clinical medicine as well as supporting functions and policy direction of the Government.
The new situation of health sector with a growing number of private healthcare providers requires MOH leaders with leadership and managerial skills and an understanding of both the public and private sectors.
Good leadership has the potential to transform a health department or the functioning of a health facility – even a group of health facilities. For example, if a district health centre manager is empowered and given the skills to create change and take charge of the health of the district’s entire population, they will find ways to overcome barriers to delivering more services at the CHS level.
WHO remains committed to supporting the Ministry in its efforts to strengthen the grassroots health system through health professional education reforms and by making changes to the current financing and service delivery arrangements.
Ongoing efforts to improve the management and policy making capacity of Viet Nam’s health sector leaders and managers will be critical to Viet Nam’s ability to successfully redesign the financing and service delivery arrangements to strengthen primary care towards the goal of UHC.
Xin cảm ơn.
