Ensuring medicines, supplies and medical equipment for medical examination and treatment

According to the Ministry of Health , currently, legal regulations on bidding for drugs, supplies and medical equipment have been issued promptly, fully, consistently and synchronously.

The Ministry of Health has just issued Official Dispatch No. 4060/BYT-KH-TC to the People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities regarding ensuring medicines, supplies, and medical equipment for medical examination and treatment.

Illustration photo.

To ensure medicines, medical supplies, and medical equipment for medical examination and treatment, the Ministry of Health requests the People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities to direct the heads of medical facilities under their management to fully perform the responsibilities of competent persons, investors, and bidding parties in contractor selection activities, ensuring adequate medicines, chemicals, testing supplies, medical equipment, and other related services for medical examination and treatment;

At the same time, promote and strictly manage the organization of procurement and bidding, ensuring publicity, transparency, efficiency, and avoiding waste; take responsibility if there is a shortage of drugs, chemicals, testing supplies, medical equipment, and related services at medical facilities under management.

The People's Committees of provinces and cities shall direct the Department of Health and local centralized procurement units to synthesize the demand for purchasing drugs, medical supplies, and medical equipment on the list of local centralized procurement of medical facilities under ministries, branches, and enterprises located in the area when these medical facilities have demand in accordance with regulations.

At the same time, the Ministry of Health requested the People's Committees of provinces and cities to direct investors to resolve issues in the contractor selection process according to their authority, not to push responsibility to ministries, branches, and superior agencies to resolve issues arising in the contractor selection process under the responsibility of investors (such as: handling situations, recommendations in bidding...).

Strengthen the organization of regular inspections and checks on bidding work according to regulations and strictly handle organizations and individuals who violate the responsibilities prescribed in Clause 3, Article 87 of the Law on Bidding.

Direct investors to strengthen propaganda, dissemination, training, and capacity building for organizations and individuals participating in bidding activities.

In recent times, the shortage of medicines has had a significant impact on the quality of medical examination and treatment. Many patients have had to go out to buy medicines, paying out of pocket for medicines covered by health insurance.

The Ministry of Health said that it has had many policies and guidelines to improve the quality of medical examination and treatment, including ensuring adequate and timely supply of drugs to meet the needs of both medical examination and treatment facilities and the market. However, there are times when some drugs have not yet had time to renew their registration; some drugs in very rare groups are still lacking local sources.

The Ministry of Health admits that the shortage of medical examination and treatment drugs is due to both objective and subjective reasons. The objective reasons have been mentioned many times, but the subjective reasons are due to the lack of initiative of some medical examination and treatment facilities in planning and placing orders with suppliers, especially for rare drugs, drugs with limited supply, and specialized drugs that depend mainly on foreign production facilities.

Besides, medical facilities and localities are not close in directing the assurance of drug supply such as lack of initiative in forecasting, determining needs, planning, and implementing procurement bidding...

Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan said that the Ministry has prepared further solutions to increase drug supply. In particular, the amended Law on Medical Examination and Treatment and the Law on Bidding will take effect from January 1, 2024; the Government issued Decree 24/2024/ND-CP guiding the Law on Bidding.

In particular, the Ministry of Health has drafted a Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Pharmacy and is seeking comments from agencies, organizations, and individuals... These are necessary solutions for hospitals to carry out procurement and bidding.

At the time the Government issued Decree 24/2024/ND-CP, which included specific items on the purchase of drugs and medical supplies, many hospitals were still hesitant to make purchases and had to wait for the circular for guidance.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/bao-dam-thuoc-vat-tu-trang-thiet-bi-y-te-phuc-vu-kham-chua-benh-d220330.html