On-duty allowances and meal allowances for medical staff increase by 182%

The Ministry of Health has a document responding to voters' petitions in Lai Chau province regarding the regime and policies for medical staff, including allowances that have been applied for many years and are no longer suitable for reality.

According to voters' reflections, the special allowance regime at public health facilities and the epidemic prevention allowance according to old regulations are still low. Typically, the standing allowance at commune health stations is only 25,000 VND/person/shift, and meal allowance is 15,000 VND/person/shift.

Voters said that this content has been proposed many times but has not been resolved, and at the same time proposed that the Government soon issue guidelines for implementing new mechanisms and policies to ensure the rights of the medical team.

Increase allowances for duty, surgery and procedures

Answering voters, the Ministry of Health said that the Government has issued Decree No. 192/2026/ND-CP stipulating a number of specific allowances in the field of health and monthly support for village health workers, residential groups, and village midwives.

The new Decree comprehensively amends previous regulations on special allowances for civil servants, public employees, and laborers at public health facilities, epidemic prevention allowances and policies for village and hamlet health workers.

Notably, the allowance for duty and meal allowance increased by 182% compared to the regulations in Decision No. 73/2011/QD-TTg. The allowance for surgery and procedures also increased by 100% compared to before.

According to the Ministry of Health, the adjustment aims to update policies to be more suitable to the current legal, socio-economic context, and at the same time improve the regime for people working in the health sector.

Medical staff enjoy professional preferential allowances up to 80%

Regarding professional preferential allowances, the Government issued Decree 350/2026/ND-CP on the regime of professional preferential allowances for medical staff. Accordingly, there are 6 allowance levels from 30-80% for each position and different working conditions.

The 80% level applies to health officials directly examining, treating, testing, and caring for mental patients; doing forensic, forensic psychiatry, emergency resuscitation, and pathology; specialized staff at commune health stations, preventive health facilities in border areas, islands and difficult areas.

The 70% level is for people directly caring for people with particularly severe disabilities, patients with leprosy, tuberculosis, group A infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, newborns; some high-risk jobs. Professional staff at commune health stations, preventive health facilities in the remaining areas and some preventive health units also enjoy this level.

The 60% level applies to people directly caring for infectious disease patients, elderly people who do not self-service; performing pathogen testing, toxic substances; radiation therapy, chemotherapy, nuclear medicine and infectious disease prevention and control.

The 50% level is for people directly examining, treating, and caring for severely disabled people; doing anesthesia and resuscitation, burns, dermatology, pediatrics, diagnostic imaging, infection control and clinical pharmacology.

The 40% level applies to many professional activities such as medical examination and treatment, testing, rehabilitation, traditional medicine, drug testing, vaccines, clinical nutrition, medical equipment and reproductive health care.

The 30% level is for school health workers; health education and population communication workers and people who do not directly work in medical expertise at units under the industry.

This is one of the steps to continue to improve the regime and policies for medical staff, in the context that many regulations on allowances have been issued more than a decade ago and need to be adjusted to suit reality.

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