In a country where cheap and efficient health care is a right, private hospitals have failed to gain a footing due to high charges and a belief among the rich that they will get better care at facilities in foreign countries, such as Singapore, draining billions of USD from the economy.
Hanoi American International Hospital
Dr. Nguyen Hoai Nam, at Ho Chi Minh City Medicine and Pharmacy University, said that in Vietnam, private hospitals are still inferior to pubic ones, which get government assistance for human resources and investment.
Many private hospitals in Vietnam, despite heavy investment, operate at capacity levels of 60-to-70 percent. Some have closed because they could not generate enough income.
Vu Anh International Hospital in Go Vap District, HCM City, has for the past three years attracted only a handful of patients a day. It opened in 2008, and was hailed as the first “five-star” hospital in Vietnam.
Phu Tho General Hospital in HCM City closed in 2010 after a widely publicised medical error when a doctor took out the ovaries of a healthy 24-year-old woman.
Investment in private hospitals is failing to find traction. The Hanoi American International Hospital in Hanoi, which was licensed in 1997, with an initial investment of USD50 million, has yet to open, even though investment has doubled to date.
Private health facilities are now resorting to opening representative clinics, which diagnose and direct patients in Vietnam to established hospitals abroad, such as Singapore’s Mount Alvernia and Parkway Health.
The main issue appears to be the failure of private hospitals to put patient care above profit. Several months ago, the musician Thanh Tung was taken to Vietnam-France Hospital in Hanoi, with a light fever. After examination, doctors admitted him for further tests.
A day later, the musician’s son was told his father’s health was deteriorating and he should prepare for his funeral, but the son was unhappy with the explanation of his father’s condition, which he believed was meant to keep him in the hospital for more than a month.
The hospital was charging VND40m (USD1,900) a day.
He moved his father to the state Bach Mai Hospital nearby, over the opposition of the medical staff, where doctors examined the musician and declared his conditional was not serious, and he was discharged after a week.
Some people complain that despite the high cost of private hospitals, they are left unhappy about the bedside manner of doctors and the quality of service.
About 300 people a year go overseas for medical check-ups using International SOS’s office in HCM City.
Đăng ký: VietNam News
