Educators have rung the alarm bell over the increase of school diseases, especially at nursery and primary schools. This has been blamed on the low investment in school healthcare.

Medical workers, where are they?

According to the Vietnam Administration of Preventive Medicine, in 2007, only 5346 schools out of 32,218 (16.6 percent) had medical staff, a very low percentage. In 2009, the number was 5616 schools out of 36,000 with 25 million students (15 percent)

Nguyen Lan Dung, a senior official of the HCM City Education and Training Department, said that though HCM City is a locality with high level of socio-economic development, only 40 percent of the schools in the city have qualified medical staff. Most of them only received basic medical training. Therefore, the department now has to recruit professional medical workers, while cooperating with Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University to train staff.

“We hope that the schools in HCM City will have enough medical workers in three or four years,” he said

Dang Ngoc Thanh Thao, Acting Director of the School Medical Centre under the Thua Thien-Hue city Education and Training Department, said that though schools still have “quotas” for emplyoing medical workers, there is still a shortage of them at the provincial level only 134 people are employed, while the province needs 570.

Dr Tran Dac Phu, Deputy Head of the Department for Preventative Health and Environment under the Ministry of Health, said that after the Prime Minister issued the Directive No 23, the number of medical workers at schools has increased significantly from 6620 in 2005 to 15,583 in 2008. However, only 1377 people are regular members of the personnel (8.8 percent), while 11,224 others hold different posts concurrently. This shows that it is not easy to recruit medical workers for schools.

Therefore, schools now have a serious shortage of qualified workers, while those already employed have to work in very difficult conditions. Most of the schools do not have enough medical equipments for examination and supervision of public hygiene. Some schools have the medical equipment, but which is however old and outdated and sometimes these are simply equipment for dental treatment.

School diseases on the increase

Due to the lack of medical workers and medical equipments, students rarely get regular medical examination, while regular examination is necessary to discover diseases early. The problem is also that even if the diseases discovered at a regular examination, they do not receive necessary treatment. This explains why the school diseases are on the increase.

The Hanoi Eye Hospital, which conducted a survey in 2009 on 16,000 students at general schools, found out that 20 percent of primary school students, 30 percent of secondary school students and over 50 percent of high schools students were short-sighted.

Meanwhile, according to the Vietnam Education Science Institute, 26.14 percent of students are short-sighted. In Hanoi, the percentage of short sighted students was low in 1960, only four percent,but the figure rose to 29.9 percent in 2001 and 30.19 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, a survey by the Thai Nguyen Medical University in 2007 showed that 11.52 percent of surveyed students from 16 schools had some kind of eye diseases.

Besides the eye diseases, students also suffer from other problems, including spinal deformities. According to the Ministry of Health, in Hanoi, 12 percent of students suffered from the problem in 1960s. The percentage was 21-24 percent in 1968-1969, rose to 23 percent in 1980s and then to 30.8 percent in 2001 and 18.9 percent in 2004-2005.

The Ministry of Health is preparing a draft programme on preventing and fighting school diseases for 2010-2015. through regular examinations and othermeasures to improve school conditionsMoreover, a network of healthcare stations will be established improve the health of students.

Ngoc Anh