The Ho Chi Minh City People's Council has just approved a specific policy to support the training of resident doctors, with a total estimated budget of more than 50 billion VND per year.
Accordingly, each year the city supports a maximum of 400 resident doctors, including 100% of actual tuition fees but not exceeding 100 million VND per person per year.
About 80 people studying 15 priority and difficult-to-attract majors such as emergency resuscitation, anesthesia and resuscitation, psychiatry, oncology, cardiology, pediatrics... are also supported with 10.62 million VND per month for living expenses.
This is a necessary policy and also a way to invest directly in high-quality medical human resources.
The resident doctor program lasts for three years, requiring learners to both study theory and full-time clinical practice at the hospital.
However, they still have to pay tuition fees from 65 - 77 million VND per year, not including food and accommodation and other living expenses.
For young doctors without family support, a total cost of hundreds of millions of VND can become a major barrier. Some people have sufficient professional capacity but find it difficult to pursue the program. Some people also have to look for other jobs with more stable income.
Therefore, more than 50 billion VND per year is an investment for a team capable of receiving high technology, operating modern equipment and becoming the core professional force at public hospitals.
Linking training support with the requirement for doctors to work in the city's public health system after graduation is also reasonable.
The city supports learners to overcome financial difficulties and in return obtain in-depth human resources to serve the people.
However, support in three years of training only helps doctors enter public health. Wanting them to stay for a long time, Ho Chi Minh City cannot just rely on a commitment or obligation to reimburse expenses.
Young doctors need to be assigned to the right major, work in an environment with sufficient conditions to develop their abilities and have the opportunity to continue studying, researching, and improving their skills.
Income must also be more commensurate with the training time, duty intensity, professional pressure and responsibilities directly related to the health and life of patients.
If a doctor is deeply trained but lacks equipment at the unit, has few practical opportunities, or does not have a clear career development path, initial support is very difficult to create long-term attraction.
Establishing constraints can keep a doctor in the public health sector within the committed term, but cannot create sustainable attachment.
The support mechanism for resident doctors, therefore, also needs to be transparent, from criteria for selecting beneficiaries, minimum service time, postgraduate job position to reimbursement responsibility and how to handle force majeure cases.
More than 50 billion VND will be most effective if it opens up a synchronous policy from training, recruitment, use to treating doctors.
Support money can help young doctors step through the door of public health, but the working environment and opportunities for dedication are what keeps them.
