For doctors in remote and mountainous areas, the first battle they have to face involves unsound local customs. Many patients would rather stay at home to seek help from Heaven than visit the hospital.

Health experts have raised concerns over the racing of universities to open healthcare majors and enroll students in the past several years, which is likely to reduce the qualifications of future health workers if training quality is not assured.

“As I have worked for 22 months, I had to pay compensation of VND44.5 million for 14 months, in cash. I was dazed because of the figure,” N.N.A., a physician in HCM City, said.

To settle shortages of drugs and medical equipment, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and other ministries need to give advice to the government to build a long-term legal framework to manage bidding.

Dialysis centres in Vietnam are facing overloading due to the rising number of people suffering from kidney problems.

Today, AstraZeneca Vietnam Company and the Ministry of Health signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to promote joint programs in improving comprehensive health care for Vietnamese people.

This decision was made to allocate medical equipment and resources towards patients in critical condition, leaving many patients waiting for treatment.

Doctors from Binh Dan Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City have assisted their colleagues at Chinese General Hospital and Medical Center (CGHMC) of the Philippines with using robots to perform Gastrointestinal (GI) cancer surgeries.

Vietnam can only produce two anti-venom serums against the bites of the Trimeresurus stejnegeri snake and Monocled cobra at a time when the number of snakebite victims has steadily increased.

Over the past years, Vietnam's health sector has made big strides with and many difficult techniques successfully applied, helping the country gain a foothold on the world medical map.

The National Pasteur Institute in HCM City has issued an urgent telegram requesting 20 southern provinces and cities to strengthen surveillance and prevent avian influenza virus entering after Cambodia recorded two cases of A/H5N1 virus infection.

The Ministry of Health’s General Department of Population and Family Planning has coordinated with localities to implement pre-marital counseling and health examination in 63 cities and provinces since 2013.

The Marburg virus disease has not yet occurred in Vietnam, but people need to keep an eye on it and update the recommendations of the health sector to actively prevent this disease.

An obstetrician has saved hundreds of babies in their mothers’ wombs. She is Dr. Nguyen Thi Sim from Hanoi Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital.

A press conference was held in Vientiane on January 9 to announce the first two successful kidney transplantation cases in Laos with the support of Vietnam’s Military Hospital 103 on December 31.

The 34-year-old mother can now hold her baby in her arms after four miscarriages. The baby boy was born in the 25th week of pregnancy, weighing only 0.5 kilograms.

On the last full moon day of the lunar year (January 6), thousands of people flocked to Phu Tay Ho temple on the shores of Hanoi's West Lake, dedicated to the Mother Goddess Princess Lieu Hanh, to perform rituals.

The National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology on January 3 announced that its doctors had successfully nurtured a 500-gram premature baby weighing only 500 grams at 25 weeks gestation.

Vietnam is in need of village-based midwives as the country has more than 7,000 remote and disadvantaged villages where women do not regularly get antenatal care at medical facilities.

The serious lack of medical equipment, particularly radiotherapy machines, has caused long waiting time for thousands of cancer patients at K Hospital in Hanoi.