Doctor's salary is only equal to 4-year bachelor's degree, on-duty allowance is only 25,000 VND

Proposal to rank starting salary of doctors as level 2

Speaking at the 13th Congress of the Vietnam Trade Union, Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Thanh Binh, Chairman of the Vietnam Health Trade Union, said that the health sector is a special union member, because there are 500,000 union members nationwide but it is related to the lives of 100 million people.

Ms. Binh stated that the medical workforce has high qualifications and quality. To obtain a practice certificate and work at a medical facility, a doctor must spend 7.5 years, while a bachelor's degree only takes 4 years.

Lương bác sĩ chỉ bằng cử nhân học 4 năm, phụ cấp trực vỏn vẹn 25.000 đồng - 1 — Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Thanh Binh, Chairman of Vietnam Health Trade Union (Photo: Nguyen Hai).

However, upon graduation, salary, rank, and allowances are the same.

Therefore, the Chairman of the Health Trade Union proposed that the Government submit to the National Assembly for consideration the adjustment of starting salary for doctors and preventive medicine doctors after recruitment to be ranked at level 2 for all job titles.

In addition, it is necessary to have a suitable salary payment mechanism, applying the enterprise salary mechanism to public service units that self-insure regular and investment expenses (group 1) and public-private service units that ensure regular expenses (group 2).

The allowance is too low.

In addition to salary, Ms. Binh said that on-duty allowances, preferential allowances, and seniority should be included in the new salary to ensure that special regimes in the health sector are treated specially according to Resolution 20 and Resolution 46 of the Politburo .

Discussing the on-duty allowance level, the Chairman of the industry union said that currently, the allowance level of civil servants, public employees, and workers in public health facilities is too low and no longer suitable.

Specifically, the daily duty allowance is only 18,750 VND/day (16/24 hours); 25,000 VND/day (24/24 hours) according to the basic salary applied when building in 2011, only 830,000 VND.

This person proposed that the Government consider amending Decision No. 73/2011/QD-TTg to adjust and increase the direct allowance level with the corresponding allowance level according to Decree No. 24/2023/ND-CP dated May 14, 2023 of the Government stipulating the basic salary level for cadres, civil servants and public employees in accordance with the new minimum salary from July 1, 2023 of VND 1,800,000.

Lương bác sĩ chỉ bằng cử nhân học 4 năm, phụ cấp trực vỏn vẹn 25.000 đồng - 2 — On-duty allowances for health workers are very low (Illustration: Hoang Lam).

Regarding vocational allowances, Ms. Binh said that the Government has just issued Decree No. 05/2023/ND-CP dated February 15, 2023 amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 56/2011/ND-CP dated July 4, 2011 of the Government regulating vocational allowances for civil servants and public employees working at public health facilities.

In which, the 100% allowance applies to regular employees who directly work in preventive medicine.

However, the decree is only effective from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023. Therefore, the Chairman of the industry union proposed that the Government consider extending the decree's term and expanding it to the beneficiaries of basic health care benefits.

Direct allowances and professional incentives, and seniority must be converted to calculate the new salary level that will be applied from July 1, 2024 for the health sector.

On the other hand, for special fields and specialties in the medical industry such as Leprosy, Tuberculosis, Psychiatry, HIV/AIDS, Emergency Resuscitation, Pathology... these are jobs with dangerous factors, requiring high concentration of effort and intelligence of medical staff.

However, there is currently no appropriate mechanism for attracting, training, using and rewarding this workforce.

Some of the above special fields and specialties are about to become specialties without high-quality human resources. Therefore, Ms. Binh suggested that the Party and State have special attractive policies to attract human resources in these fields and specialties.

In addition, this unit also proposed that the Party and the State consider the regulation of annual staff reduction for the health sector. If staff reduction is carried out annually like other sectors, then the health sector's human resources will certainly not be able to meet the quality of medical examination and treatment. Thus, the quality, which is not guaranteed as it is now, will continue to decline.

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