Ho Chi Minh City has set a target of having 18 doctors and 42 hospital beds per 10,000 residents in 2018 so as to increase the quality of health check-ups and treatment.

At District 2 Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City

The goal was announced by Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Health Tang Chi Thuong at a conference on March 6 to kick start the sector’s main tasks this year.

According to Thuong, the municipal health sector also aims to have all medical stations at the ward and communal levels staffed with doctors and meet national requirements on health care, 85.2 percent of the population covered by health insurance, and over 95 percent of infants under 1 vaccinated. 

The sector will take initiative to prevent diseases in order to minimise the number of cases contracting diseases and the fatality rate.

Extra efforts will be made to inaugurate the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital of Paediatrics in March and put the second facility of the municipal Oncology Hospital into operation in December. 

The sector will also work to speed up construction on general hospitals in Hoc Mon, Cu Chi and Thu Duc districts, the Hospital for Traumatology and Orthopaedics, and the second facility of the Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine.

Vice Chairwoman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thi Thu spoke highly of the achievements gained by the sector, including a 13.5 percent decrease in the incidence of hand-foot-mouth disease and a 11.7 percent fall in the number of dengue fever cases hospitalised.

Last year, the city had 17 doctors and 40 hospital beds per 10,000 residents. Hospitals at the district level were capable of serving over 10,000 patients per day.

Thu expressed her hope that in the future, the city will make a health record for each citizen covering their entire life from the womb to the tomb.

This will be one of the breakthroughs of the city to change the relationship between the health sector and the public, she stressed.-VNA