Handling bottlenecks, unlocking resources to develop elderly care facilities

On the morning of December 2, discussing in the hall about the draft Resolution of the National Assembly on a number of breakthrough mechanisms and policies for the work of protecting, caring for and improving people's health and the investment policy of the National Target Program on health care, population and development for the period 2026 - 2035, many National Assembly deputies expressed their interest in health care and improving the quality of life of the elderly.

Lack of bottleneck handling mechanism to effectively implement Resolution 72

According to the analysis of delegate Tran Thi Hien (National Assembly delegation of Ninh Binh province), Vietnam's population has entered the aging stage; it is predicted that by 2036, Vietnam will become a country with an aging population and by 2049, it will be a super-aged population. "In addition to the goal of becoming a high-income country by 2045, it can be seen that the challenges before becoming rich are very real and will create great pressure on both the state budget and social resources for issues such as: Health care, ensuring social security, preparing social infrastructure suitable for the elderly; especially the development of nursing homes and professional elderly care," Ms. Tran Thi Hien emphasized.

According to this delegate, in the context of limited public investment resources, promoting socialization and attracting private resources to develop elderly care services is an objective, urgent and strategic requirement.

However, delegate Tran Thi Hien said that through research, the draft Resolution has almost no breakthrough policies that focus on handling bottlenecks to effectively implement the policies of Resolution 72 on encouraging and developing elderly care facilities in combination with medical facilities, strongly promoting the participation of the private economic sector, and mobilizing social resources in people's health care.

Socialization of development of elderly care facilities

According to delegate Tran Thi Hien, the National Target Program on health care, population and development for the 2026 - 2035 period, although having project 4 on developing social assistance facilities, still has points that are not compatible with related planning and socialization policies.

Delegates attending the meeting. Photo: quochoi.vn

This delegate cited that, currently in the National Target Program dossier, social protection facilities only meet 30% of the demand; the public system only has 46 elderly care facilities out of a total of 425 social protection facilities (accounting for about 11%); many localities do not have specialized facilities for the elderly. Therefore, in Sub-Project 1 of Project 4 of the National Target Program, the target for the 2026-2030 period is to invest in building at least 15 new nursing homes, and at least 10 social protection facilities in the 2031-2035 period.

"Thus, by 2030, we will have about 60 facilities and by 2035, about 70 facilities. Meanwhile, according to the planning of the social assistance network for the period 2026-2030, by 2030, there must be at least 90 elderly care facilities, including both public and non-public. Thus, there needs to be a truly breakthrough policy mechanism to attract socialized resources to develop about 30 elderly care facilities in the next 5 years," delegate Tran Thi Hien analyzed.

From a personal perspective, delegate Tran Thi Hien commented that in order to unleash social resources and develop non-public nursing facilities, it is necessary to thoroughly consider and handle bottlenecks. The delegate pointed out two current bottlenecks, which are:

Firstly , nursing homes that provide long-term care and functional services for the elderly are not considered medical facilities to enjoy preferential policies on land and premises. If local planning does not have clean, convenient land in the residential community for the development of nursing homes, it will be very difficult to attract investment.

Second , professional nursing facilities with large and long-term investment capital, investment in specialized equipment such as ambulances, patient transport, rehabilitation equipment, specialized medical instruments, etc. need breakthrough policy mechanisms on credit incentives, interest rate support, and corporate income tax.

Delegates attending the meeting. Photo: quochoi.vn

Delegate Tran Thi Hien proposed that it is necessary to consider policies for nursing homes that perform the functions of medical examination and treatment, long-term care, and rehabilitation for the elderly as medical facilities and enjoy special policies on land and financial taxes (stipulated in Article 5 of the draft Resolution on breakthrough policies).

At the same time, add to Sub-Project 4, Project 3 on adapting to population aging and aging population, promoting health care for the elderly; research and perfect policy mechanisms to promote attracting social resources, strongly develop nursing facilities, care for the elderly; perfect technical standards for nursing facilities, pilot a model of semi-boarding care for the elderly.

Also concerned about the health care of the elderly, delegate Nguyen Van Manh (National Assembly delegation of Phu Tho province) stated: Resolution 72-NQ/TW of the Politburo has identified specific tasks and solutions for the issue of birth rate, improving the quality of the population to adapt to population aging, including solutions to adapt to population aging through investment in developing geriatric hospitals or general hospitals with geriatric specialties... to provide good health care for the elderly. However, this content has not been specified by the Ministry of Health in the National Target Program on Health.

Delegate Nguyen Van Manh (National Assembly delegation of Phu Tho province) speaks. Photo: quochoi.vn

On that basis, delegates proposed that the Government should balance the development investment capital sources arranged in the Program to arrange investment capital for the sub-project to improve population quality and the sub-project to adapt to population aging and health care for the elderly, which have been identified in each sub-project of the Program.

Along with that, delegates suggested that it is necessary to specify the content of breakthrough mechanisms and policies to mobilize and effectively use all resources to improve the quality of work to protect and care for people's health, promote the development of private healthcare, and encourage the development of large-scale private hospitals.

Source: https://phunuvietnam.vn/xu-ly-diem-nghen-khoi-thong-nguon-luc-phat-trien-cac-co-so-cham-soc-nguoi-cao-tuoi-238251202122702563.htm