VietNamNet Bridge – The development of traditional medicine institutions in HCM City, including their integration into general hospitals and clinics as envisaged under a national plan issued in 2003, has been sluggish at best, health officials say.

Physicians preparing traditional medicine for patients. HCM City is still short of traditional medical institutions and sufficient personnel to satisfy increasing demand in the city and neighbouring provinces. (Photo: VNS)

Both institutions were always overloaded because patients from southern region and Central Highlands provinces flock to the city for treatment, said Tran Huu Vinh, head of the Traditional Medicine and Pharmacy Office under the city's Department of Health.

Three city-level general hospitals and 12 district-level hospitals had not yet established traditional medicine departments, Vinh said at a meeting held yesterday, March 10, to review the implementation of the national policy on developing traditional medicine in the city.

The 2003-10 policy requires city-level and district-level hospitals to have traditional medicine departments.

While this has not happened, private traditional medicine clinics have developed rapidly, and more than 1,000 such establishments now operating in the city, Vinh said.

The city also has around 500 private enterprises trading and producing Chinese herbal medicine.

Meanwhile, there were several illegal traditional medicine clinics as well as traders in Chinese herbal medicine that were proving a headache for concerned authorities, he said.

A shortage of qualified traditional medicine physicians was also to blame for the sluggish development of traditional medicine in the city over the last few years, Vinh said.

He noted that there were only two universities in the city that were training traditional medicine physicians.

"The training of sufficient personnel in traditional medicine is the most difficult task facing the sector," said Asst. Prof. Dr. Pham Khanh Phong Lan, deputy director of the department.

The department would promote training of traditional medicine physicians to ensure that commune-level health clinics have at least one traditional medicine physician, Lan said.

She called on individuals and enterprises to invest in the training of traditional medicine physicians. Health examinations and treatment should combine modern and traditional medicine.

The department would also plans to upgrade the two existing traditional medicine hospitals to meet increasing demand for this form of treatment, especially for chronic illnesses among the elderly, she said.

The department would also assist the city's Traditional Medicine Association, Traditional Medicine Institute and Traditional Medicine Hospital to cultivate medicinal herbs in collaboration with other provinces, Lan said.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News