The overloading situation in major hospitals has also witnessed improvements, with the rate of patients having to share their beds with others going down to 16.6 and 11.4 percent in central-level and provincial-level hospitals, respectively, a dramatic decrease compared to 2012’s 58 and 47 percent.

These numbers indicate that the country’s health sector is getting better but still has plenty of room to improve their service delivery, said Luong Ngoc Khue, head of the Health Ministry’s Department of Medical Examination and Treatment at the annual conference of the club of directors of major hospitals in the northern region, which was held in the north central province of Thanh Hoa on May 25.

Patients’ safety, hospital security and financial autonomy were chosen as the theme of this year’ conference,  reflecting the urgent issues that the health sector identified as focal points in 2018.

Given the rising violence against medical staff in hospitals, directors of hospitals have been asked to reinforce security forces in their institutions, form cooperation mechanisms with the police, and establish quick response security teams.

Nguyen Ngoc Hien, deputy director of the Hanoi-based Bach Mai Hospital, one of the largest public hospitals in the country, said his hospital has implemented a number of measures to increase revenues while cutting back on costs, most notably stringent financial management to effectively monitor spending or revenues of each of the medical unit.

The wage of the medical staff is now calculated based on his/her performance and productivity, instead of a fixed rate.

Hien said Bach Mai hospital has also opened up collaboration with the private sector. By the end of 2017, the hospital has managed to mobilise some 1 trillion VND from partnerships of this nature, in order to purchase cutting edge medical equipment.

Nguyen Quoc Anh, director of Bach Mai Hospital and chair of the northern region hospitals club, in his closing speech, said directors of hospitals need to also pay more attention to their roles as the bridges between their medical institutions and the health ministry, in order to better implement the tasks given.-VNA