WHO / Yoshi Shimizu
A WHO field staff talks to a woman fetching water from a water catchment tank in Kiribati.

Health workforce in Viet Nam

The health workforce – doctors, nurses, midwives and pharmacists, among others – is critical to delivering quality health services, accelerating universal health coverage (UHC), and achieving the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Having a competent, multidisciplinary health workforce team to provide integrated, people-centred health services is necessary to meet the changing population needs in Viet Nam, including the rise of non-communicable diseases and aging populations. As Viet Nam embarks on health system reform, key components include building a qualified health workforce particularly at the primary care level, legislative and regulatory quality assurance mechanisms for the health workforce and medical universities, and adequate payment for health workers.

Technical links

Increasing health workforce

In Viet Nam, there has been a rapid expansion in the number of health training institutions and graduates in the last two decades. The number of universities training doctors has almost doubled since 1997, from nine to the current total of 17. The number of new doctors graduating yearly has increased from 3 265 in 2006 to 9 118 in 2017, an almost threefold increase in a decade.

Health workforce per population

In 2016, Viet Nam had an estimated 0.8 physicians per 1000 population, 1.4 nurses per 1000 population, and 0.3 pharmaceutical personnel per 1000 population.