Necessary waste

Many hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City have run out of antivenom - Photo: DUYEN PHAN

But there are far greater forms of waste, hundreds or thousands of times greater, such as the abandonment of public housing and land that shouldn't exist, yet it persists for a long time without any solution.

During discussions on the amended Law on Pharmaceuticals, many delegates proposed adding a provision to Article 3 of the draft law stipulating a mandatory mechanism for stockpiling "rare drugs" or "orphan drugs" for use in emergency patient care.

The most pressing concern of the delegates, and what they wanted clarified, was that the regulation should consider the disposal of expired medication (and the purchase of new medication) as a perfectly normal procedure, rather than a waste, if it were to expire during storage.

This proposal stems from the fact that, for a long time, some post-inspection agencies have been overly rigid and inflexible, arguing that stockpiling but not using expired drugs and destroying them is wasteful, leading to a fear of making mistakes among management staff and healthcare facilities.

As a result, they did not stockpile medicine (some of which cost only a few thousand dong per dose) to treat patients during their life-or-death moments.

While with medicine, as well as fire extinguishers, everyone hopes for "prevention" rather than "cure".

Of course, to avoid waste, the amount of medicine to be purchased for stockpiling must be regulated by a calculation mechanism based on the amount of medicine used in the previous few years.

At the same time, there must also be a mechanism for circulating medicines between regions and healthcare facilities to optimize the use of existing drug reserves.

When it comes to wastefulness, no example is more poignant and heartbreaking than the numerous public houses and land plots in various localities that are left vacant, neglected, and wasted.

These open-pit "diamond mines" and "gold mines" only need a reasonable leasing mechanism to bring them into operation, which would generate significant resources for the budget. The revenue generated would certainly allow many localities to comfortably stockpile medicines.

A recent report in Ho Chi Minh City reveals thousands of properties, totaling tens of thousands of square meters, that remain vacant and unrentable, resulting in wasted resources due to the lack of a mechanism for leasing public land and properties for production and business purposes.

Many houses and land plots are located in prime locations in districts 1, 3, 5, 6, Binh Thanh, Phu Nhuan, etc. Land in the city is expensive to rent in some areas, with some renting for millions of dong per square meter. The amount of money being wasted is tens or hundreds of billions of dong per year.

Not to mention the 12,500-apartment resettlement project in Thu Thiem (Thu Duc City), nearly 2,000 apartments and over 500 land plots in the Vinh Loc B resettlement area (Binh Chanh) are also left vacant, lacking an effective mechanism for sale or lease.

A mountain of money is left exposed to the elements. Impatient with this situation, several entities, notably the Thu Thiem Urban Development Area Management Board, have proposed a joint venture to utilize a portion of land designated DL-6 in the Thu Thiem New Urban Area (located in An Khanh Ward, Thu Duc City) as a golf practice range during periods when it is not in use.

However, this proposal has not yet been considered. Clearly, having a general legal regulation would make it easier for local authorities to develop and approve leasing plans.

Instead of being impatient and worried about wasting resources on things that are essential for saving people's lives, we should think about preventing the waste of public assets.

This also involves implementing the principle of ensuring the appropriate and effective use and practicing thrift, and preventing waste of public resources.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/su-lang-phi-can-thiet-20240624104611568.htm