Vietnam kickstarts $130 million EU-funded programme to improve healthcare

The workshop, which saw the participation of 100 representatives from the two ministries, the State Treasury, Vietnam Social Security and the Ministry of Planning and Investment as well as 10 targeted provinces and international development partners working in Vietnam’s healthcảe sector, aim to familiarise government agencies in charge with the contents of the programme, the administrative procedures and disbursement criteria.

The second phase of the programme, which is going to run from now to 2017, includes a budgetary support of €100 million, €5.7 million worth of complementary technical services provided through the European Union Health Facility and a €8.3 million contribution to the World Bank’s Health Professional Education and Training Project.

The second phase targets ten provinces considered the poorest in the country, namely the northwest mountain provinces of Lai Chau, Son La, Dien Bien, Lao Cai and Yen Bai, the northeastern mountain province of Ha Giang and the central highlands provinces of Kon Tum, Gia Lai and Dak Nong, where the population consists mostly of ethnic minorities.

The programme aims to increase the proportion of health insurance among near-poor people by 2.5 million and raise the quality of services at health clinics at the communal level in order to reduce overcrowding at provincial and city hospitals, raise the number of doctors posted at communes and put in place a methodology for measuring patients’ satisfaction in 70 per cent of hospitals.

Other targets include reducing the infant mortality rate to 14.8 children under one year of age per 1,000 births from the current 18, increase training for midwives at the communal level, and decrease gender-based abortion.

Earlier, the European Union granted Vietnam €39.15 million for the first phase of the programme, which ran from 2011 to 2014 with the aim to increase the capacity of the Vietnamese healthcare sector.