Maintaining health stations: Facilitating medical examination and treatment at the grassroots level

After the merger, each commune and ward will have a health station, and the remaining health stations in the area will become health stations. These stations will retain their staff, maintain professional work, and perform all the same tasks. This will facilitate people in medical examination and treatment (KCB) and access to basic health services.

The patient is being treated at Thanh Binh Medical Station, Bau Ham Commune. Photo: Hai Yen

The medical station is a new model, not yet included in the regulations of the health sector. While waiting for circulars and instructions from the Ministry of Health , the Department of Health has proposed that the Provincial People's Committee consider and guide the use of seals at the stations to maintain medical examination and treatment for the people.

Create maximum convenience for people

Bau Ham commune was established on the basis of merging 4 communes of Trang Bom district, Dong Nai province before, including: Bau Ham, Cay Gao, Song Thao and Thanh Binh. The whole commune currently has 15 hamlets. In addition to Bau Ham commune health station, there are 3 health stations in the commune: Thanh Binh, Bau Ham, Song Thao. The commune health station has 3 general practitioners, 4 general practitioners studying to become general practitioners; ensuring the criteria that each station has a doctor to serve the medical examination and treatment work for the people.

Doctor Vo Van Dong, in charge of Bau Ham Commune Health Station, concurrently in charge of Thanh Binh Health Station, said that in the first 6 months of 2025, health stations in the commune examined nearly 3,000 outpatients. After the merger, medical examination and treatment work and people's health care activities were maintained stably. The head of the commune health station assigned stations to be in charge of hamlets to ensure that people go to the nearest place and receive the most convenient medical services.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoa (residing in Trung Tam hamlet, Bau Ham commune) shared: “At first, local people were worried that after the merger, they would have to travel further to the main point of the commune health station for medical examination and treatment. However, the activities of the health stations are still maintained, so we are very happy.”

General practitioner NGUYEN THI MUI has been working at Thanh Binh Medical Station (formerly Thanh Binh Commune Medical Station, Trang Bom District, Dong Nai Province) since 2018. After the merger, Ms. Mui still works at the old station. She is familiar with the local people and understands the health status of chronic patients under the management of the station, so it is very convenient for her to take care of and treat them.

Mr. Tran Van Xuan (residing in Truong An hamlet, Bau Ham commune) said that he was very happy because after the merger, medical activities were completely smooth. The medical station provided medicine for chronic patients and carried out vaccinations as usual. People could go to the nearest place for health care.

Nghia Trung Commune was established on the basis of merging the communes: Duc Lieu, Nghia Binh and Nghia Trung (Bu Dang district, former Binh Phuoc province). Specialist Doctor I Tran Duy Nhat, in charge of Nghia Trung Commune Health Station, said that the activities of the health station and the station are still maintained normally. The station has full staff to serve the health care work for the people in the area according to the assigned functions and tasks.

However, the current difficulty of Nghia Trung Commune Health Station is the degraded facilities and lack of rooms. The station has submitted a request to repair the headquarters. At the same time, it is asking to build a prefabricated house to add rooms for vaccination, medical examination and treatment, emergency, medicine storage, etc.

Propose seal and appoint title for the person in charge of the medical station

According to the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment 2023 and Decree No. 96/2023/ND-CP dated December 30, 2023 of the Government detailing a number of articles of the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment, there is no such name as medical station or medical point. Therefore, the implementation of administrative procedures to adjust the operating license for medical examination and treatment for medical stations when implementing the arrangement of the organization of the 2-level local government apparatus is still facing difficulties.

While waiting for the Ministry of Health to issue a new circular replacing Circular No. 33/2015/TT-BYT guiding the functions and tasks of commune-level health stations, the Department of Health has proposed and recommended that the Provincial People's Committee consider and guide the use of seals at stations to maintain uninterrupted medical examination and treatment for people.

Dr. Vo Van Dong added that currently, the Commune Health Station and the stations operate according to Circular No. 33/2015/TT-BYT of the Ministry of Health guiding the functions and tasks of commune-level health stations. Although the stations do not have seals, doctors still examine and dispense health insurance drugs as usual. After that, specialized staff bring the documents to the main station to sign and stamp, serving the purpose of health insurance settlement.

“In addition to proposing a seal for medical stations to facilitate medical examination and treatment, we hope to have a title for the station manager to be “legitimate” in management work. Only then will the station manager be more responsible in implementing the station’s activities, which also aims to better perform the work of taking care of people’s health,” Dr. Vo Van Dong suggested.

Hai Yen

Source: https://baodongnai.com.vn/xa-hoi/202507/duy-tri-cac-diem-tram-y-te-tao-thuan-loi-trong-kham-chua-benh-tu-co-so-0152065/