Improve the quality of citizens performing military service

According to statistics, on average, each year, the entire Army Corps has 5-10 soldiers sent back to their hometowns after 1 month of training due to poor health. These cases are not compensated or the number of soldiers is changed, leading to the Army Corps not meeting its quota and causing difficulties for units in the process of training new soldiers.

Captain Ngo Van Thang, Political Commissar of Battalion 881, Brigade 131, said: “Returning soldiers who are not in good health to their hometowns is an unavoidable decision and greatly affects the soldiers’ ideology and psychology. After each time like that, we have to organize activities, educate, encourage, and orient the remaining soldiers so that they can feel secure and strive to fulfill their military duties well.”

In 2023, the Navy Logistics Department - the leading agency - coordinated with functional agencies and upper-level hospitals to implement many measures to improve the quality of health check-ups. Cases that do not meet health standards will be compensated and replaced immediately, minimizing the number of young people who do not meet health standards for military service, ensuring the planned quota. The Navy Logistics Department has proactively developed a plan for health check-ups at the service level. Accordingly, the entire service has established 10 examination councils and organized training on many topics such as: Diagnostic imaging, cardiovascular, etc. In particular, the Military Medical Department and the Logistics Department have invited psychiatric experts from upper-level hospitals to train in mental health screening using rapid diagnosis forms.

As one of the doctors participating in the training course on mental health screening at the Naval Medical Institute, Lieutenant Dinh Van Du, Head of the 131st Brigade Infirmary, said: “Through the training course, we have a better understanding of pathological manifestations such as anxiety disorders, depression, clinical manifestations of mental illness... This knowledge is very useful, not only helping us in the health check-up of new soldiers but also serving the process of taking care of soldiers' health at the unit.”

This year's health review boards were given priority to be organized at medical facilities of the units to promote the function of modern medical equipment. The Logistics Department mobilized doctors and nurses from the Naval Medical Institute and new doctors and nurses from higher levels to strengthen the boards. During the health review process, experts in psychiatry, cardiology, diagnostic imaging, and ophthalmology from Military Hospitals 175 and 103 directly examined and evaluated suspected cases of disease.

Lieutenant Colonel Truong Van Tu, Chief of Naval Medical Staff, said: “To give localities more time to make up for the difference, the councils organize the examinations in a rolling manner, with the first locality being examined first and then the next. After examining each locality, the council summarizes the results and announces the examination results for each specific case. After the health re-examination, the councils discovered 130 cases with pathologies and requested exchanges and returns with the localities.”

Before joining the army, the young men were examined by the local military agency and ensured both their health and background, but when they were re-examined at the military unit, the disease was discovered. Explaining this, experts said that the disease was not discovered for many reasons, both objective and subjective. One reason is that the local military agency coordinated with the medical agencies to stop at the preliminary examination, only relying on the information in the declaration and clinical examination such as: measuring physical strength, cardiovascular and blood pressure, internal medicine-neuropsychiatry, surgery-dermatology...

Many diseases are only detected when examining and performing paraclinical tests such as: X-ray, ultrasound, electrocardiogram...

In reality, the discovery of soldiers with medical conditions that do not meet the health requirements for military service does not only exist in units of the Navy. In addition, the cause cannot be ruled out as being due to inadequacies in health standards for military service. Young people performing military service are required to have health level 3, while the People's Public Security only accepts health levels 1 and 2. This affects the quality of citizens performing military service and creates loopholes for young people with health conditions that do not meet the requirements for military service, causing difficulties in the process of training new soldiers in units. In the program to collect opinions on amending the Law on Military Service in 2015, voters in many localities have proposed to adjust and supplement a number of contents related to preliminary examination and health standards for calling citizens to join the army.

With synchronous, effective and practical solutions, the Navy has gradually improved the quality of citizens performing military service, actively contributing to the task of training new soldiers in 2023./.

Source