Thoughts of the veterinary staff at the base
Mr. Ninh Van Binh has been working as a Veterinary Officer in Thanh Son Township (Ba Che District) since 2017. Risk of harm to health, work environment exposed to many dangerous and toxic diseases.
“Currently, I only get almost 1.4 million VND/month. So, to make a living, I have to combine work as a wage laborer, whoever has a job does it, combined with farming and farming at home,” Mr. Binh confided.
However, the overtime is not pleasant as Mr Binh still makes sure he is present whenever an epidemic hits or the vaccination session comes. “I have teams of brothers who specialize in planting or helping with construction of acacia forests, but because I’m the only veterinary officer in the community, it’s often difficult to want to work with my brothers. They were afraid I would quit my job to vaccinate pets, so they didn’t accept me,” Binh shared.
Although he has been working as a municipal veterinary officer for 5 years, Mr. Binh has never felt secure in his job when the income from the job is too low. According to Mr. Binh, this job requires a lot of responsibility but the income is precarious, not enough to live on, sometimes he jokes with people that he does it because he loves the job.
Mr. Binh always thinks that doing this job well will help people raise livestock, but with a meager salary, he can’t focus on maintaining and monitoring the epidemic situation in the area every day or the facility too monitor when each village is 5-6 km away from each other, the farthest is 10 km from the community center.
“Vaccination work faces many difficulties when it is not possible to vaccinate all animals at once. Many villages are injected 2-3 times on the main day and then have to be vaccinated. When it comes to pets, they need to be re-vaccinated and the allowance is not enough to pay for gas and transport,” Mr Binh said.
Protective equipment for vaccination is provided by the District Agricultural Technical Service Center, but it is still very dangerous to inject cattle. Cows can fight, buffalo have horns, so veterinarians must always be vigilant when injecting. Officials often have to instruct farmers to carefully close the stall before starting the injection.
At the time of pet vaccination, people make an appointment as to when he will be present at that time, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes late at night. Most people graze freely, so often they have to go to the forest to inject, climb hills to inject the cattle, there are herds 4-5 km from home.
“I wish the veterinary profession had a safer salary, even if there wasn’t always an injection campaign. In addition, I hope there will be a change in this industry to ensure disease prevention and help people develop livestock workers,” Mr. Binh confided.
After working as a veterinary officer in Vo Ngai Township (Binh Lieu District) for more than 3 years, Mr. La Quang Hien also faces the same difficulties as many other community veterinarians, such as low allowances and inadequate daily living expenses. Currently, each community in Binh Lieu district has only one veterinarian. In addition to vaccination, Mr. Hien also works at home, such as growing rice and crops.
In addition, due to people’s awareness and understanding of the importance of vaccination, mainly ethnic minorities, it is still difficult to mobilize people to vaccinate pets. Prevention is not high, so there are still some households who have no need for vaccination. Therefore, the community veterinary staff must both vaccinate and, together with the village head, mobilize and encourage people to fully vaccinate their pets in order to reduce risks and affect the family economy.
Hard work, injections from early in the morning to late at night, little pocket money, little support from the county, Mr. Hien wants the state to allow more attention, veterinary staff can be in the public service, government, increased pocket money because of vaccination work, pets are often diseases and Exposed to chemicals that also affect health.
Dang Van Minh, deputy director of the Ba Che District Agricultural Technical Service Center, said livestock and poultry farming in the region is currently showing signs of decline as people are allocated forest land, which is why grazing is not as heavy as it used to be there is no land for grazing.
Especially in communities like Luong Mong, Minh Cam, Dap Thanh, Thanh Lam, Ba Che District Agricultural Technical Service Center needs to dispatch personnel to support the injection. There was a time in Dap Thanh municipality when a seasonal injector had to be hired for 2 vaccinations in a year, but sometimes it wasn’t possible because the salary was lower than going to the forest to produce acacia.
In Ba Che District, as well as other places in Quang Ninh, each municipality has only one veterinarian with an allowance of 1.0 basic salary according to Government Decree No. 35/2016/ND-CP of May 15, 2016, in which a Number of articles of the Veterinary Medicine Act. In addition, the veterinary staff is also responsible for many different tasks. In many places, the staffing situation is constantly changing, resulting in a lack of expertise and sometimes not meeting the established schedule.
Need mechanisms and guidelines to support veterinary medicine at grassroots level
Recently, livestock production in Quang Ninh province is generally favorable, dangerous infectious diseases in livestock and poultry are well controlled, the number of outbreaks has decreased by 90% compared to the same period in 2021. Some infectious diseases still occur in small numbers and do not lead to epidemics.
Currently, district-level agricultural technical service centers are formed on the basis of the merger of veterinary stations, plant protection stations and agricultural advisory departments, thereby implementing the addition of the title of municipal veterinary staff, department, to the list of municipal-level part-time cadres, who works part-time, according to the resolution No. 55/2016/NQ-HDND of December 7, 2016 of the People’s Council of Quang Ninh Province.
Specifically, the organizational apparatus is arranged in a streamlined manner, which reduces focal points. Community-level veterinary staff are responsible for both animal husbandry and veterinary work while developing plans for disease prevention, vaccination, and disinfection and sterilization.
They are also the central point of contact for the exercise of veterinary work and the provision of veterinary medical services in accordance with the law, the implementation of support services in accordance with the guidelines… In principle, all veterinary employees are technically qualified and carry out the tasks assigned to them.
According to Mr. Tran Xuan Dong, director of the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine Subdivision in Quang Ninh Province, the veterinary forces at the grass-roots level and the veterinary medicine at the district level are currently very thin, with small allowances and a very large area of management. encountered many difficulties in completing the task.
In addition, the funding for the implementation of disease prevention and control is still slow and insufficient, in particular, investment funds for disease prevention have not been paid attention to in many places, resulting in many public health constraints.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the entire province of Quang Ninh currently has 169 community-level veterinarians, 11 of whom are part-time. The meager allowance has caused many difficulties for the veterinary staff at the grassroots level. It can be said that soon, a mechanism and measures to fully resolve the above restrictions will help improve the efficiency of animal husbandry activities in Quang Ninh Province.
According to the report of Quang Ninh Provincial Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine Subdepartment, on November 14, 2022, vaccination yielded modest results. In particular, the vaccine against foot-and-mouth disease in buffalo and cows has 80,000 doses (53% of plan); blood clots in buffalo and cows 40,300 doses (achieves 67% of plan); Avian flu vaccine over 3.7 million doses (reaches 74% of plan).