VietNamNet Bridge – By 2020 HCM City’s public hospitals will no longer be overloaded and people will have access to high-quality healthcare, city officials promise.

Patients at the HCM City Oncology Hospital. Efforts are under way to ease the overload on public hospitals by 2020. Photo: VNS

The entire healthcare sector will become a high-quality service industry by then, contributing significantly to the city’s socio-economic growth, Nguyen Tan Binh, director of the local Department of Health, said.

To achieve this target, greater autonomy would be provided to public hospitals, reducing the financial pressure on the government, he told a meeting with city leaders last week.

Eighty two hospitals have been granted autonomy since the city began implementing this policy in 2006, he said.

Of them, 10 manage to mobilise all the revenues they need to operate while the remaining partly fund themselves, he said.

Their autonomy has seen them hire skilled medical professionals as well as improve facilities, equipment and the quality of care, he said.

Besides this, he said, the health sector has also increased investment in healthcare infrastructure and medical technologies, including through public-private partnerships and low-interest rate borrowing.

As many as 16 projects worth a total of VND13.5 trillion (US$597.34 million) have been undertaken in the past 10 years under the public-private partnership model, he said.

Ninety one others were funded by low-interest loans worth a total of VND3.93 trillion (US$173.89 million), and these include construction of new hospitals, expansion of existing ones, and purchase of medical equipment, he said.

Many new hospitals are being built to reduce hospital overloading, including Cho Ray Hospital No.2, Hospital 175, Thong Nhat Hospital, Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University Centre, and Trauma and Orthopedic Hospital.

Dinh La Thang, secretary of the city Party Committee, said more autonomy should be given to public hospitals to improve the quality of care and patients’ satisfaction.

The health sector should focus on easing the load on hospitals and improving the quality of care by 2020, he added.

VNS