Good morning.
Earlier this month, Viet Nam joined the rest of the world in celebrating the first ever World Patient Safety Day. Dr Tedros, WHO Director General emphasized that “No one should be harmed while receiving health care. And yet globally, five people die every minute because of unsafe care.”
Health care-associated infection, HAI, is a common cause of unsafe care. Hundreds of millions of patients worldwide are affected by HAIs each year. HAIs by antibiotic resistant bacteria are often fatal.
Majority of these deaths can be avoided by ensuring patient safety. Strengthening infection prevention and control is advancing patient safety.
Majority of deaths due to HAIs can be avoided by infection prevention and control, IPC. Effective IPC reduces health care-associated infections up to 55%.
WHO acknowledged that over the years, Viet Nam has made remarkable achievements in the area of IPC. These include:
- updating the relevant legislative backing, with Circular 16 replacing Circular 18 in 2019;
- developing and implementing a national action plan, as well as national IPC guidelines;
- establishing a system for the surveillance of health care-associated infections; and
- systematizing IPC work in all hospitals.
- IPC is also championed as Viet Nam implements its initiative on green, clean and beautiful health care facilities, which guides the country’s efforts in improving physical settings for hospitals and health centres.
All these efforts resulted in improved IPC at operational level. For instance, proper IPC practices have played a critical role in controlling the spread of measles in the National Paediatric Hospital in recent years.
However, we should admit that there is still a long way to go to achieve the 2020 targets set by the national action plan. We need to work harder in promoting a health care facility environment that catalyses the effective implementation of the new circular. Our efforts should be focused at primary health care level, such as district hospitals where investment in IPC activities is still very limited.
Colleagues, we need not only your strong commitment to advancing IPC in Viet Nam, but also your timely actions to realize such commitment.
Last week, world leaders gathered in New York and adopted a high-level United Nations Political Declaration on universal health coverage (UHC), the most comprehensive set of health commitments ever adopted at this level. They committed to scale up efforts to advance UHC. These included efforts to enhance the performance of people-centred health systems by improving patient safety.
IPC is critical to improve patient safety.
IPC is critical to achieve UHC as it is a practical and evidence-based approach with demonstrated impact on quality of care and patient safety across all levels of the health system.
Let us keep our momentum as we continue to champion IPC in the country! WHO remains committed to supporting Viet Nam in this journey.
Thank you very much and I look forward to a fruitful discussion.
Xin cam on!