 |
| Currently, localities are mainly stuck in purchasing vaccines for expanded immunization, tuberculosis drugs, ARV drugs and Vitamin A... |
The Ministry of Finance has just issued document No. 5609/BTC-HCSN to the Government Office regarding comments on purchasing vaccines for the expanded immunization program, ARV drugs, tuberculosis drugs and vitamin A.
Accordingly, regarding the allocation of funding for purchasing vaccines for the Expanded Immunization Program in 2023, the Ministry of Finance said that after the Prime Minister approved three national target programs in 2022, the Ministry of Finance reviewed current legal regulations on the basis for allocating funding for purchasing expanded immunization vaccines when the mechanism for the 2016-2020 health-population target program is no longer implemented.
The Ministry of Finance said that there is no regulation on the central budget ensuring funding for purchasing vaccines for expanded immunization, but it is implemented according to the provisions of the State Budget Law on decentralization of the state budget. Funding for purchasing vaccines for expanded immunization at the local level is guaranteed by the local budget.
On that basis, since 2022, the Ministry of Finance has sent three official dispatches to the Ministry of Health on the legal basis for allocating funds from the central budget to purchase vaccines for the expanded immunization program in localities.
The Ministry of Finance has requested the Ministry of Health to develop a budget for 2023 for the tasks and contents performed by the Ministry of Health according to regulations and issue a document guiding localities to implement from local budget sources. In case it is necessary to arrange the central budget to purchase some drugs and vaccines for children under 5 years old (in addition to the subjects of the 3 national target programs), the Ministry of Health is requested to submit to the competent authority for consideration and decision to have a basis for arranging central budget funds.
The Ministry of Finance has sent an official dispatch to the People's Committees of provinces and cities to guide the implementation of a number of tasks under the health-population target program for the 2016-2020 period to be converted into regular expenditure tasks. To date, the Ministry of Health has not submitted to the competent authority for decision on the allocation of the central budget (specifically, the allocation of the budget estimate for the Ministry of Health) to purchase vaccines for expanded immunization.
The Ministry of Health has issued a document guiding localities on implementing tasks under the health-population target program to convert them into regular expenditure tasks, including requesting localities to allocate local budget sources to purchase vaccines in 2023 according to regulations.
Therefore, the Ministry of Finance said there is no basis to allocate the central budget for the Ministry of Health to purchase vaccines for expanded immunization in 2023.
Regarding the difficulties of localities, the Ministry of Finance said that according to Document No. 669/TTr-BYT, up to now, the Ministry of Health has received documents from 16 provinces and cities reporting a number of difficulties and problems in implementation.
Accordingly, localities are mainly stuck in purchasing expanded immunization vaccines, tuberculosis drugs, ARV drugs and Vitamin A such as local budget allocation, consulting procurement prices and implementation organization...; at the same time, the Ministry of Health is requested to carry out centralized bidding, ordering or price negotiation.
Therefore, the Ministry of Finance believes that localities do not have any problems with policy mechanisms, but mainly problems in organizing the implementation of budget allocation, bidding, and ordering.
Regarding the procurement of ARV drugs, tuberculosis drugs and Vitamin A, the Ministry of Health is requested to guide localities to implement according to the regulations as advised by the Ministry of Finance in Official Dispatch No. 10095/BTC-HCSN dated October 4, 2022.
In order to have vaccines for expanded vaccination in time, the Ministry of Finance also requested the Government Office to report to the Prime Minister to submit to the Government to include in the resolution the central budget to continue to allocate to the Ministry of Health to purchase vaccines for expanded vaccination nationwide from the central budget reserve and supplement the 2023 budget estimate for the Ministry of Health to implement.
At the same time, the Ministry of Health was assigned to submit to the Government to amend Decree No. 104/2016/ND-CP dated July 1, 2016 regulating vaccination activities, which stipulates that the central budget (allocated to the Ministry of Health) ensures funding for the use of vaccines and medical biological products for children and pregnant women who must use mandatory vaccines and medical biological products for infectious diseases under the Expanded Immunization Program.
Source
Comment (0)