VietNamNet Bridge – HCM City would shut down pharmacies that fail Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP) standards by the end of this year, Cao Minh Quang, Deputy Minister of Health said last Thursday.

Quang's announcement followed a new circular issued by the Ministry of Health that allows for an extension of the January 1 deadline set earlier.

A total of 2,167 pharmacies without GPP certificates in the city would be permitted to sell only non-prescription drugs after three months of the new circular coming into effect in the end of this month, said Pham Khanh Phong Lan, deputy director of the city's Department of Health.

Since it began offering GPP certification in 2008, the city had granted them to 1,500 pharmacies, 41 per cent of the total, until the end of last year.

All 94 pharmacies located in hospitals received GPP certificates and the remaining 1,406 were taken by residential area establishments, comprising 1,241 private pharmacies and 165 retail outlets run by pharmaceutical firms.

Speaking at a conference held to review the implementation of GPP standardisation among pharmacies for the 2008-10 period, Lan said the lack of pharmacists was one of the major obstacles to attaining the certification.

The city had 4,503 pharmacists with university degrees, a rate of about 5.6 pharmacists per 10,000 residents, nearly four times higher than the national rate, Lan said.

However, this is still short of the demand in the city's pharmaceutical retail network which comprises 4,159 units, including 3,667 drugstores and 492 agents.

Some consumer mindsets and practices were also inhibiting increased GPP application, she said.

Many local consumers are used to purchasing drugs without prescription, something that is not possible at GPP shops, she explained.

The high investment needed for infrastructure and equipment has also discouraged many entrepreneurs and enterprises from upgrading their pharmacies to meet GPP standards.

However, Hua Ngoc Thuan, deputy chairman of the municipal People's Committee pledged to eliminate pharmacies that have not acquired GPP certificates by the end of this year in the interest of consumer safety.

* $76m project launched to improve health staff

The Ministry of Health has started a US$76 million project to improve training facilities at 18 medical universities and colleges in the next five years.

This is because more than 3,000 health clinics throughout Viet Nam – one- third of the total number of clinics nationwide – have no doctors.

The ministry said training facilities had not kept pace with demand caused by the population boom.

"The project, backed by the Asian Development Bank and the Government of Australia, intends to train another 11,000 nurses, 4,000 midwives and 600 lecturers for universities and colleges by the end of 2015," said project director Tran Quoc Kham at a launching ceremony in Ha Noi yesterday.

He also said that 200 health-care institutions throughout the nation would be supplied with higher level staff.

Nearly 6,000 ethnic minority people will also be trained so that they can work in remote areas.

The project will focus on improving the planning and management of human resources, strengthening the quality of training for medical staff and improving the management of health services.

Statistics from the Health Ministry show that Viet Nam had 40.5 medical staff for every 10,000 people in 2008 compared with 43.1 in 1986.

The ministry plans to raise this to 41 medical staff (eight doctors and two pharmacists) per 10,000 people by 2015 and 52 medical staff (10 doctors and 2.5 pharmacists) per 10,000 people by 2020.

This means the sector needs to train a further 28,000 medical staff by 2015 and 500,000 by 2020.

Kham said that $15 million would be spent in 2011 with the focus on upgrading laboratories, teaching facilities, libraries and human-resource management units for universities and colleges.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News