VietNamNet Bridge – Vu Hoai Son was tired. Tired of waiting, tired of the bad attitude of doctors and nurses at local hospitals, and tired of sharing his bed with other patients.

Cancer patients receive treatment using modern, high-quality equipment at the HCM City Cancer Hospital, but many local residents remain unaware of recent advances in the quality of local healthcare.

There, doctors did not shout at him. They answered his questions politely, without scolding, and offered good advice, he said.

Another local patient, an aunt of Tran Thi Huyen Trang, also from HCM City, fled to Singapore, too.

The reasons? Friendly attitude of doctors and nurses. Spacious and airy facilities. And communicative staff, willing to offer detailed counsel.

Patients such as these are not in the minority, according to Nguyen Tan Binh, head of HCM City's Health Department.

In fact, many Vietnamese seek treatment abroad for various reasons.

It could be patient overload, cramped facilities, cumbersome administrative procedures or bad attitudes of doctors and nurses.

Some people even go abroad for their annual check-ups.

The Health Ministry says that more than 40,000 patients each year travel to Singapore, Thailand and Korea for medical care.

As a result, medical facilities here lose US$2 billion a year to other countries.

Most of the patients who go abroad live in major cities like HCM City and Ha Noi.

At a conference held recently in HCM City, doctors said that many local residents were not aware of the advances that had been made in local healthcare in recent years.

Dr Hoang Luong, head of the Sai Gon Otorhinolaryngology Hospital, said that Singapore, compared to Viet Nam, received triple the number of patients from Viet Nam for treatment of ear, nose and throat.

But local hospitals, he pointed out, have state-of-the-art equipment and technologies for this medical speciality.
The health ministry, in recent years, has focused on advanced technology and specialised centres.

Since 1995, 13 specialised centres have been established at hospitals in HCM City, Ha Noi and Thua Thien-Hue Province, and the latest technologies are used at many hospitals.

And there are 1,162 health facilities nationwide that can be accessed easily by most people, according to Dr Tran Quy Tuong, deputy head of the Disease Treatment Management Department under the Ministry of Health.

Dr Nguyen Truong Son, head of Cho Ray Hospital, said that many Vietnamese doctors could perform the same procedures and offer the same treatment as foreign doctors.

There are local hospitals that perform procedures, like blood vessel transposition, that are rarely done elsewhere.
For example, the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion has performed autologous and allogenous stem-cell transplantation.

Truong Quang Dinh, deputy head of Paediatric Hospital No.2, said doctors had good professional skills and training.
Professor and Dr Nguyen Thanh Liem, head of National Hospital of Pediatrics, was quoted in Suc Khoe & Doi Song (Health & Life) magazine, as saying that endoscopic surgery for children was second to none in the world.

Doctors at the hospital perform endoscopic surgery for the treatment of diseases like hirschsprung, a disorder of the abdomen that occurs when all or part of the large intestine has no nerves, and BILE-duct cysts.

Many other hospitals in Viet Nam conduct advanced procedures as well. Viet-Duc Hospital performs spine surgery with the use of robots, and, just last year, HCM City Paediatric Hospital No.2 has successfully separated conjoined twins at the abdomen and chest.

Liem said that many foreigners had visited Viet Nam for care as well as for medical instruction.

Recently, Liem's hospital signed an agreement with a university in the US that will permit students to study endoscopic surgery here.

In a recent conference on cardiac technique held earlier this month in HCM City, Lee Benson, director of the Cardiac Diagnostic and Interventional Unit at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, said that Vietnamese doctors were as skilled in cardiac catheterization techniques as doctors in other countries.

He said that he was visiting Viet Nam to learn the technique from Vietnamese doctors.

Another technique that has attracted many foreign patients, particularly couples who are having difficulty conceiving, is in vitro fertilisation.

Dr Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong said that An Sinh, Van Hanh and Tu Du Obstetric hospitals offered in vitro fertilisation to more than 300 patients each year.

An Sinh Hospital, for the first six months of last year, attracted more than 110 foreign patients for the procedure.

Phuong said that a foreign doctor who is an expert in in vitro fertilisation techniques came to Viet Nam with his wife to have the procedure done.

Also, the People's Hospital No.115 removed a 12.5-kilo tumour on the left thigh of one Cambodian patient last year, attracting international media attention.

To attract more local patients to Vietnamese health facilities, more investment is needed to upgrade facilities and improve the quality of service, particularly the attitudes of doctors and nurses, according to Phuong.

Dinh said the professional quality varied from ward to ward in one hospital, and as a result, patients could not receive consistently good care.

Dr Tran Hai Yen, deputy head of the HCM City Eye Hospital, said that public hospitals at the central and city levels had the most highly skilled doctors.

Hospitals at the grassroots level and private facilities employ doctors who are not as skilled. However, private facilities in major cities have modern equipment and facilities, she noted.

Currently, doctors are not allowed to work at more than one hospital. Yen said that if the ministry changed the rule, hospitals at the grassroots level and private hospitals would be able to offer better care.

And, it also would relieve the patient overload at public hospitals at the central and city levels, leading to better service at those hospitals as well, she added.

Source: VNS