VietNamNet Bridge – According to a survey conducted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Hanoi and HCM City in 2010, 1.47 percent of interviewees in Hanoi and 3.77 percent in HCM City said they don’t go to hospitals for examinations because they can’t afford healthcare services.

This is the second most common reason why people do not go to hospitals. More importantly, the top reason is that people think their illness is mild and therefore it is unnecessary to see doctors.

Ly Ngoc Kinh, former Chief of the Health Examination Management Department under the Health Ministry and Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Health Economic Science Association, said that there is a paradox in Vietnam: Most patients are poor people but they also use healthcare services less than other people. Around 40 percent of the poor patients can’t receive treatment because they don’t have money.

This shows that finances are the biggest hindrance for the poor. Many people have to live with uncured diseases. VietNamNet publishes a series about plights that need our readers’ help.

Parents refuse to take their child’s body

Doctors at hospitals in Hanoi have witnessed many complicated cases in which patients died at a hospital but their families refused to take the bodies because they could not afford the hospitalization fees.

Mrs. Vu Thi Mai from the northern province of Hung Yen, who has taken care of her nephew at the Central Pediatrics Hospital for more than one year, told VietNamNet that some cases would be unimaginable if she hadn’t already witnessed them in this hospital.

Mai said she cannot forget the case of a couple from the northern province of Vinh Phuc. Their newborn baby contracted heart disease. They brought the child to the Central Pediatrics Hospital for treatment for several months the child passed away. The couple quietly left the hospital and didn’t take the body of their child.

According to Mai this couple was extremely poor. They were farmers and their only asset was a small plot of field. While they were in Hanoi to take care of their child, they lived on the assistance of other people who also came to Hanoi to take care of their relatives in the hospital. These people were also poor but they were as not poor as the couple from Vinh Phuc.

They shared their food with and lent their belongings to this couple. The wife stayed in the room with her child. The husband slept on the pavement because he could not afford to pay VND5000 ($0.25) for a bed in the cheapest inn.

The child died after three months in the hospital. “The day the baby died, the couple quietly left the hospital without saying a word. When doctors asked information about the couple, we knew that their child had died. The hospital then buried the child,” Mai recalled.

Mai said that they left the hospital because they could not pay hospital fees. “Sometimes I would see them crying together because the hospital fees were huge to them. Though their health insurance covered part of the hospital fees, they could not afford to pay the remaining fees,” Mai added.

Duong Thi Minh Thu from the Central Pediatrics Hospital told VietNamNet that there are a few cases in which the families of dead patients don’t claim the bodies and one of the reasons is they don’t have money to pay hospital fees.

However, Thu noted that there are always solutions for any case and the hospital will help the families of patients toit’s the best of its ability.

Several months ago, the Central Pediatrics Hospital received a child patient from the northern province of Hoa Binh, who had contracted a fatal disease. The patient died after several weeks. Doctors could not locate any relative of the dead patient. By checking the medical records  for the address of the patient’s family, they were able contact with the family.  The family said they could not do anything and they begged the hospital to bury the child.

Thu said that if families of patients are too poor they can tell the hospital. The hospital can ask for assistance from social organizations.

Research conducted by Dr. Hoang Van Minh from the Hanoi Medical University and Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong from the World Health Organization in Vietnam on the burden of healthcare on Vietnamese families from 2002-2008 reveals alarming statistics.

The ratio of Vietnamese families who have to pay for healthcare at the “disaster level” (they have to pay for healthcare themselves and the spending is at least 40 percent beyond their means) has remained at 6 percent since 2008, a high percentage in comparison with other places in the world. Also in 2008, 3.7 percent of interviewed families further depleted their  because of burdens from healthcare expenses.

According to the research, the benefits of health insurance are limited because patients who have health insurance still have to pay hospital fees directly.

Cam Quyen