The HCM City Department of Health plans to develop specialised hospitals with advanced techniques to meet increased demand for health examination and treatment of local residents and foreigners.

Doctors at Bình Dân Hospital perform an endovascular aneurysm repair operation. The hospital is one of a number of hospitals in HCM City now being developed as specialised treatment facilities. — Photo courtesy of Bình Dân Hospital

Many hospitals in the city have updated advanced techniques to improve effectiveness of treatment.

HCM City Paediatrics Hospital 2, for example, recently performed a successful liver transplant operation on a three-year-old child who had congenital biliary atresia, a condition in young children in which the bile ducts outside and inside the liver are scarred and blocked.

When she was two and a half months old, the hospital performed a Kasai procedure which removed the blocked bile ducts and gallbladder and replaced them with a segment of her own small intestine. However, she developed cirrhosis and needed a liver transplant.

On October 17, doctors of the hospital’s organ transplant centre performed the operation. This was the hospital’s 12th transplant that used a liver from a living person, according to Department of Health.   

The Paediatrics Hospital 2 is expected to become a centre for organ transplants for children in the southern region of the country, the department said. 

The Health Department is also developing facilities specialising in organ transplants for adult patients, including Chợ Rẫy Hospital, People’s Hospital 115, Gia Định People’s Hospital, Bình Dân Hospital and Hoàn Mỹ Hospital.

This is part of a broader city plan to have professional treatment techniques offered at certain hospitals, in addition to a network of hospitals providing primary healthcare services by 2020.

Under the plan, hospitals specialising in cardiac treatment include Chợ Rẫy Hospital, Heart Institute, University Medical Centre, Thủ Đức District Hospital, People’s Hospital 115, Gia Định People’s Hospital, Trưng Vương Hospital and Tâm Đức Heart Hospital.

The department plans to develop hospitals specialising in other sectors such as oncology, stroke and other ailments.

Developing specialised treatment will attract domestic and foreign patients to the city for health examination and treatment, according to the Health Department.

This is expected to reduce the number of Vietnamese patients going overseas for treatment.

The city has 114 public and private hospitals, 318 health stations, 196 private general health clinics, and nearly 6,000 private specialised health clinics.

It has developed a network of 25 satellite stations under the City Emergency Aid Centre  to improve effectiveness in first aid and emergency aid for patients and accident victims. — VNS