Cooperation among countries can strengthen prevention and treatment capacity, patient treatment and care, and hospital management.

Cooperation with French partners is one of the highlights of the city’s international medical cooperation.

During the 50 years since the two countries established diplomatic relations, the French Cooperation Agency has supported training in postgraduate programmes lectured by French and Vietnamese professors and doctors who are lecturers at medical universities in Hanoi, HCM City, Hue and Hai Phong.

In addition to providing medical treatment, a team of French and Vietnamese doctors and nurses at the French Medical Centre in HCM City exchange and share experiences in various fields, especially in training human resources and fostering skilled doctors and nurses.

Emmanuelle Pavillon-Grosser, French Consul General to HCM City, said more than 3,000 Vietnamese doctors and nurses have been sent to French hospitals for training and they are taking charge of management in universities and hospitals in Vietnam.

“More and more young French people are studying in Vietnam,” she said.

The United States is also one of the countries with many important medical cooperation projects with HCM City.

The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has coordinated with Vietnamese medical workers to save the lives of many patients over the past 25 years by providing prevention and treatment services for people living with HIV.

From 2013, the Vietnamese-German Faculty of Medicine at the HCM City-based Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine has trained medical students according to international standards.

This training programme is the first of its kind to train Vietnamese medical doctors following international standards and the first graduates can continue pursuing their postgraduate programmes while simultaneously practising medicine in Germany.

The university is also the first unit in Vietnam to have a training programme whose quality is equivalent to the European level.

Nguyen Thanh Hiep, the university’s principal, said so far 70 excellent doctors have graduated from the school, and 349 other students have enrolled in this joint training programme.

They will be the doctors of the ‘golden generation of medicine’ in the coming time, he said.

“The training programme is a breakthrough in the field of training medical workers with high quality,” he said.

Tang Chi Thuong, Director of the municipal Department of Health, said the city aims to become a healthcare centre in the ASEAN region.

“It is necessary to promote cooperation with medically advanced countries to help increase the health sector’s medical examination and treatment capacity,” he said.

That not only meets Vietnamese patients’ rising demand but also attracts foreign patients, contributing to raising the position of Vietnamese healthcare, he said./.VNS