On the afternoon of September 8, at the Government Headquarters, Politburo Member, Prime Minister Le Minh Hung chaired a working session with the Ministry of Health and relevant ministries, branches, and agencies on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of laws in the field of health submitted to the National Assembly at the 2nd Session (October 2026); especially the content on management, distribution of drugs, medical equipment and medical examination and treatment.
According to the Government Authority of Information and Communications, speaking at the working session, the Prime Minister said that recently he has received many opinions from experts, hospitals and the reality of this field shows that there are still obstacles and loopholes, from legal regulations to the implementation stage.
The Prime Minister emphasized that this is a big, very urgent issue, of great concern to society, and this time the Government leaders are very determined. Therefore, the Ministry of Health must remove and thoroughly resolve obstacles, inadequacies, bottlenecks, have a transparent and transparent mechanism but can be controlled, to ensure thrift, efficiency, reduce intermediaries, and reduce selling prices.
At the same time, not to let profiteering and law violations continue to occur, ensuring the most important and final goal is for people to access medicines and medical equipment to serve medical examination and treatment with the highest quality, reasonable prices, and reduce unnecessary costs.
The spirit is to put the lives, health of patients, and the interests of the people first and foremost; not to let medical facilities lack medical equipment, people lack medicine because of the mechanism; not to let officials be afraid of responsibility and dare not decide; not to let the mechanism be abused for personal gain," the Prime Minister said.
Regarding solutions for the coming time, the Prime Minister requested to strictly control the cost from the source; manage prices from manufacturers, suppliers, border gates to businesses, hospitals and to patients through a data interconnection mechanism; publicize prices of each type of equipment, type of medicine; have a reasonable profit margin control mechanism, especially regulations on price listing.
Reform the bidding and negotiation mechanism through national centralized bidding or direct price negotiation with manufacturers, resolutely eliminating all international and domestic brokerage costs.
Directing the completion of the draft Law on Food Safety (amended), the Prime Minister emphasized, clearly stipulating the rights and responsibilities of state management agencies, risk control mechanisms and intervention measures when food safety risks arise; regulations on the rights and obligations of relevant organizations and individuals in the law.
Emphasizing the great responsibility of the Ministry of Health in this field, the Prime Minister requested to shift the focus from pre-inspection to post-inspection; reduce licensing, pre-inspection and fully establish conditions to ensure post-inspection, especially the traceability system, monitoring mechanism, early warning, and inter-sectoral coordination mechanism.
Implement a chain-based food safety risk management model associated with the entire supply chain, associated with building databases, traceability and state inspection of food safety. Strengthen the management of street food, collective kitchens and establishments providing collective meals and school meals.
