The Ministry of Health is seeking opinions from ministries and sectors; Departments of Health of provinces and cities are drafting amendments and supplements to a number of articles of Circular No. 03/2023/TT-BYT dated February 17, 2023 of the Ministry of Health guiding job positions, norms for the number of employees, and the structure of public employees according to professional titles in public health non-business units.
Accordingly, the job positions at commune, ward, and special zone health stations under provinces and centrally-run cities have many changes.
Leadership and management positions:
| STT | Job title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Director of Health Station | |
| 2 | Deputy Director of Health Station | |
| 3 | Chief of Office, Head of Department, Head of Department | |
| 4 | Deputy Chief of Office, Deputy Head of Department, Deputy Head of Faculty | |
| 5 | Station Head |
Group of professional positions:
| TT | Job title | occupation level used | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The doctor came... | From level 3 to level 4 | Specifically, according to the specialty of medical examination and treatment (medicine, traditional medicine, dentistry) or primary health care |
| 2 | Preventive medicine doctor about ..... | From level 3 to level 4 | Specifically in the field of disease prevention (infectious disease control, non-communicable disease control, epidemic surveillance, testing, diagnostic and standardization) |
| 3 | Physician | Level 2 | |
| 4 | Pharmacy | From level 2 to level 3 | |
| 5 | Public health | Level 3 | |
| 6 | Nurses | From level 1 to level 3. | |
| 7 | Midwifery | From level 2 to level 3 | |
| 8 | Technique on ..... | From level 2 to level 3 | Medical tests, diagnostic imaging, rehabilitation, biochemical, microbiological tests |
| 9 | Head Nurse and equivalent | Level 3 | |
| 10 | Nutrition | From level 2 to level 3 | |
| 11 | Medical equipment engineering | From level 2 to level 3 | |
| 12 | Population | From level 1 to level 3. | |
| 13 | Social work | From level 1 to level 3. | |
| 14 | Clinical psychology | Level 3 |
Each health station has 15 employees, proposing to implement adjustments according to population
The draft Circular proposes a norm for the number of employees of the Health Station to be 15 employees/Health Station.
The adjustment coefficient is proposed to be adjusted according to the population. Accordingly, for health stations in region I and region II with over 6,000 people, if increasing from 2,000 - 3,000 people, one more person will be added to work; For commune health stations in region III with over 5,000 people, if increasing by 1,000 people, one more person will be added to work.
For geographical adjustment: Region II Health Station is increased with a coefficient of 1.2; Region III Health Station is increased with a coefficient of 1.3.
The Ministry of Health proposes that, depending on the socio-economic conditions of the locality, the number of people working at the Health Station may be lower or higher than the above norm.
The Director of the Health Station develops a project on job positions and proposes the number of employees to competent authorities to ensure the full and timely provision of basic and essential quality health services to meet the health care needs of the people in the area.
Sharing his views on this issue, an expert in the field of preventive medicine said: Designing positions such as heads of departments and deputy heads of departments at health stations is reasonable, because grassroots healthcare today is not only limited to medical examination and treatment but also includes community health management, epidemic prevention and control and the implementation of many target programs.
However, the problem lies in the implementation method. With many health stations of very small scale, with only a few people, "mechanical" application of the department-room model easily leads to bureaucratization, increasing titles but not increasing efficiency. At that time, management functions are fragmented, while actual responsibilities are not clear.
If the job position is not linked to the workload, implementation capacity and specific evaluation mechanisms, this model risks becoming formalistic, even reducing the flexibility that is a vital factor of grassroots healthcare.
