Causing trouble and frustration for people and businesses
Information from the Government Inspectorate said that this agency has just issued a Conclusion on the inspection of the responsibility for performing public duties of cadres, civil servants and public employees in handling administrative procedures and providing public services to people and businesses at the Ministry of Health.
Notably, the inspection results of 20 administrative procedures and 55 administrative procedure settlement records at 5 units under the Ministry of Health discovered a number of limitations, shortcomings, and violations.
The Ministry of Health reported that the results of handling administrative procedure records did not reflect the actual situation, the data was inaccurate; there were a large number of overdue records but the processing was very slow.
The Ministry periodically reported to the Government that the rate of overdue records in the 2021-2023 period was 4.97%. In fact, the rate of overdue records after review was 69.8%, an increase of 64.8% (144,959 records).
At the 5 inspected administrative procedure settlement units, there were requests for enterprises to supplement and complete documents beyond the regulations; requests for additional documents exceeding the prescribed number of times; requests of a recommendation nature, requests that were incomplete or unclear; requests for additional documents when regulations had been abolished; requests for additional documents proving that the factors constituting drug prices were applied incorrectly according to legal regulations, etc., leading to enterprises having to supplement and explain many times, causing inconvenience to enterprises.
"The results of the inspection of a sample of 20 administrative procedures show that the rate of overdue settlement records in the fields of pharmacy, traditional medicine, and medical equipment is very high, with backlogs for many years being one of the factors leading to the shortage of drugs and equipment; along with limitations and weaknesses in the management of records,... is the risk of creating a mechanism of asking and giving, causing trouble, not ensuring objectivity, fairness, and transparency in the settlement of administrative procedures, causing frustration for people, businesses, and public opinion" - The inspection conclusion stated.
The dossiers for handling some administrative procedures for granting certificates of advertising of medical examination and treatment services, advertising content of medicines and health protection foods are still lacking, have excess dossier components, do not meet the requirements and conditions for handling administrative procedures according to regulations; there are signs of lack of responsibility in managing advertising of health protection foods, not fully implementing the dossier appraisal process, leading to the fact that the enterprise has advertised before registering and the advertisement has content that is not consistent with the registered content but is still granted an Advertising Certificate; the advertising content may cause misunderstanding that the product has the same effect as medicine but has not been detected by the Ministry of Health for timely correction and handling.
Proposal to rectify management work
The Government Inspector General requested the Minister of Health to direct, rectify, handle and overcome the shortcomings, defects and violations mentioned in the inspection results section.
Notably, the Ministry of Health was requested to rectify and enhance public service responsibilities, overcome shortcomings in the issuance of certificates of advertising content for health protection foods, medicines, and medical examination and treatment services to ensure that businesses advertise honestly and do not mislead people and society; fully implement the appraisal process and strengthen inspection and examination work.
The Government Inspectorate also recommended that the Ministry of Health review the responsibility of the head and the responsibility of the leaders of the Ministry of Health related to shortcomings, defects, and violations in state management and the settlement of administrative procedures and provision of public services to people and businesses.
