The Deputy Minister of Health Le Quang Cuong says that their staff quality problems are the fault of lax management by the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET).

 A nursing class

In the official letter, Cuong said that the MoET is letting too many facilities open medical training courses when the evaluation of the quality of the courses is done only by the local department of education and training.

According to Cuong, without consultancy from the Ministry of Health or from medical experts, the equipment and teaching quality at those schools are not completely assured. "We asked the MoET to issue stricter regulations for opening medical schools and to allow evaluation from the Ministry of Health and certain experts in the field," he said.

The headmasters of medical schools in Vietnam have reported that many private schools are opening training courses for medical staff even though they lack the equipment and teachers to do so. Nguyen Minh Loi, representative from the Ministry of Health, also said due to the unique nature of these departments, medical schools need to collaborate much more closely with hospitals.

"But not only are those schools located far from hospitals, they also lack equipment for practice. This will lower the experience and quality of their graduates." Loi said.

The Ministry of Health also asked the MoET to assign enrollment targets to private schools based on their training abilities and facilities.

During a conference about medical staff training in the Mekong Delta Region, officials said that when some schools don't have enough equipment, they will rent that equipment before inspectors arrive and return the equipment once the inspectors have left.

Minister of MoET, Pham Vu Luan said, "I've ordered the local agencies to verify this information and requested the Ministry of Health to carry out irregular inspections at those schools. We'll suspend or even shut down schools that violate the regulations."

Luan agreed that they need tighter collaboration between the two ministries for better education.