Delegates continue to be impatient about the drug shortage, the Minister of Health said many obstacles have been removed.
In fact, there are still times when people cannot buy medicine at the hospital pharmacy after their medical examination, affecting their treatment, according to the National Assembly delegate.
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| Delegate Hoang Thi Thanh Thuy (Tay Ninh) questioned the Minister of Health . |
On the afternoon of November 11, while questioning Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan at the 8th Session, many delegates continued to express their impatience with the shortage of medicine and slow payment of health insurance.
Delegate Hoang Thi Thanh Thuy (Tay Ninh) said that the situation of delayed payment of health insurance premiums to hospitals has not been completely resolved despite many years of petitions.
According to delegate Thuy, that has caused difficulties in medical examination and treatment and affected the recent drug bidding and drug shortage due to financial difficulties of medical facilities.
The Tay Ninh delegate acknowledged that although the Ministry of Health has issued guidelines, in reality it has not been able to resolve the problems of many localities across the country. Therefore, hospitals are currently facing difficulties and are also stuck with health insurance debt.
Ms. Thuy asked the Minister to let her know whether he is committed to working with Vietnam Insurance to resolve this issue for hospitals, and if necessary, propose a specific mechanism to handle the above situation.
In response, Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan said that the Government has directed the issuance of Decree 75 of 2023 to resolve the outstanding health insurance debt.
“Recently, we and Vietnam Insurance resolved over VND11,000 billion in outstanding debt. Currently, Vietnam Insurance is coordinating with localities to allocate funds to medical facilities to resolve outstanding debt issues,” said Ms. Lan.
According to the Minister, this arrears are sent back to the medical facility as prescribed, which is a huge resource for purchasing and bidding for drugs. In fact, recently, due to medical facilities being in arrears, businesses have not been interested in selling drugs to public medical facilities.
Also questioning the issue of drug shortage, delegate Nguyen Thi Thuy (Bac Kan) stated that according to the reflection of hospital pharmacies, there are still difficulties in bidding for drugs. In fact, there are still times when people cannot buy drugs at hospital pharmacies after examination, affecting treatment.
"I request the Minister to tell us what this problem is and when it will be resolved?", delegate Nguyen Thi Thuy questioned.
Responding to delegates, Minister Dao Hong Lan said that recently, the National Assembly and the Government have had many policies to address the problem of drug shortages. In particular, the 2023 Bidding Law has introduced many policies to address drug procurement and bidding in medical facilities.
Minister Dao Hong Lan informed that there is only one content related to hospital pharmacies that is stuck. Because, previously, hospital pharmacies were self-managed by hospitals, which organized the purchase of drugs to sell to people when needed, without taking money from the budget, nor from health insurance.
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| Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan. |
However, the 2023 Bidding Law stipulates that hospital pharmacies must also bid. The arising needs of patients are extremely diverse. Therefore, hospital pharmacies face many difficulties. Medical facilities reflect this content in the revised Pharmacy Law. The Pharmacy Law, which will be approved at this session, will also amend issues related to hospital pharmacies. That is, handing over the initiative to medical facilities, ensuring publicity, transparency, and accountability. On that basis, providing medicine sources for people.
Participating in the questioning, delegate To Van Tam (Kon Tum) clearly stated that the lack of medicine affects the quality of medical examination and treatment, and affects patients. Previously, there were legal bottlenecks, but recently the National Assembly and the Government have made many efforts to remove them, and the basic bottlenecks have been resolved. However, the lack of medicine still exists.
So is there a lack of responsibility on the part of those responsible for bidding for these medical facilities? If so, how will the Minister of Health handle it, Mr. Tam questioned.
Responding, Minister Dao Hong Lan said that when bidding for drugs, there are 3 levels, procurement is concentrated at the Ministry of Health, at the province and at the medical facility. During the implementation process, the National Assembly and the Government have recently resolved many obstacles.
Regarding the reason, the Minister said that the new regulation document is difficult to research, understand, and arrange human resources to implement. Human resources reading this document are still confused.
To solve this problem, in addition to training, the Ministry of Health has developed a handbook for drug bidding. The Minister said that it is almost finished and will provide specific instructions so that localities and facilities have enough capacity to implement it.
“In practice, there are cadres and units who do not dare to think or act, are afraid of making mistakes, and have problems in implementation. We have instructed medical examination and treatment facilities to submit to the Prime Minister for promulgation of Directive 24 stipulating the responsibilities of heads in ensuring medicine and medical supplies. We hope that localities and facility directors will focus on implementing this extremely important task,” Minister Lan replied.
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