Non-public hospitals: Inadequacies
According to the report of the Department of Health, up to now, Nghe An has 34 hospitals, of which 8 non-public hospitals are in operation, making our province the locality with the 3rd largest number of hospitals in the country (after Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi).
As a province with a large area and large population but limited state investment resources for public health, the development of non-public hospitals in the area has contributed significantly to reducing patient overload at all levels and improving the quality of medical examination and treatment for the people.
In 2010 alone, with nearly 450 billion VND invested by non-public hospitals to develop facilities and medical equipment, the number of hospital beds has been raised to 18.5 beds per 10,000 people (our province has an average number of hospital beds per 10,000 people lower than the national average, but the number of non-public hospital beds is twice as high as the national average with 1.68 beds per 10,000 people compared to 0.86 beds per 10,000 people nationwide).
On the other hand, the active participation of non-public hospitals in providing medical examination and treatment services has created choices for people, initially forming services and a culture of serving patients at hospitals. However, besides the above advantages, the development of the non-public health network system in our province in recent times still has some shortcomings.
First of all, about planning and development plans for hospitals: The reality is that non-public hospitals in our province are developing "too quickly", not complying with the planning for developing the health care network of the Government and the province.
That is why there are situations like Thai An Hospital, which initially only applied for a license to establish a General Clinic at its current location, but has now become a hospital and is continuing to expand; there are hospitals that only have enough space to register for 30 beds but have combined hundreds of beds, leading to a situation of patient overcrowding.
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The Dental Clinic of Dong Au General Hospital (Vinh City) is invested with modern equipment - Photo: SM |
Furthermore, the distribution of non-public hospitals is not reasonable. Except for Phu Dien Hospital located in Dien Yen commune (Dien Chau), non-public hospitals are concentrated in Vinh city. Rural, midland and mountainous areas that need the sharing of non-public healthcare have no investors participating.
According to the regulations of the Ministry of Health, newly built hospitals must ensure the standard area of the campus/hospital beds, far from residential areas, but up to now, there are still newly built hospitals (Cua Dong Hospital 2 in Hung Dung Ward - Vinh City) too close to residential areas, close to the market, causing public opinion to be very concerned about whether the hospital's waste treatment system is guaranteed.
Although there are regulations requiring hospitals to have their own waste treatment systems, up to now, only 6/8 non-public hospitals in operation have liquid waste treatment systems (Phu Dien Hospital does not have one yet, Thai An Hospital is under construction; for solid waste treatment systems, units have not built incinerators and are contracting with the provincial hospital for treatment. With the situation of rolling investment and loose supervision, people in the hospital area are worried about whether medical waste treatment will be guaranteed when discharged into the environment?
Next is the issue of human resources and medical equipment: due to overheated development, heavy investment in infrastructure but lack of timely preparation in human resources, non-public hospitals are seriously lacking in doctors. To operate, private hospitals must contract overtime with public hospital doctors or attract, even compete for good doctors from other hospitals. For income, doctors have to work at full capacity and work more, so quality cannot be guaranteed.
There is an interesting detail that the director of a private hospital was sued for keeping the original diplomas of employees (a practice of some private hospitals to retain doctors after sending them for specialized training). In addition, according to representatives of non-public hospitals, the current demand for capital mobilization is very large but non-public hospitals have not had access to aid loans to invest in purchasing other synchronous equipment.
The Ministry of Health has not yet had criteria for classifying non-public hospitals, so some hospitals such as Thanh An Saigon, Hospital 115, and Saigon Eye Hospital have modern equipment and perform some high-tech services no less than public hospitals, but are considered Level 3 hospitals (equivalent to district hospitals). This leads to disadvantages for health insurance patients when performing some medical services, they are only supported 50% instead of 80% of the cost. A representative of the Nghe An Non-Public Hospital Association said that they have proposed this content many times to the Ministry but have not received any guidance or response.
In addition to the above content, representatives of non-public hospitals also made recommendations on the responsibility of upper-level public health care in providing professional support to lower-level health care according to Project 1816 of the Ministry of Health; on the price of medical examination and treatment services, and prescriptions at public hospitals for health insurance patients, which is too low and not suitable for non-public hospitals operating under the Enterprise Law.
Obviously, while non-public hospitals are developing rapidly, there is no general planning, so in that context, non-public hospitals must pay special attention to investing in medical waste treatment systems, not letting medical waste pollute the environment while improving the quality of medical examination and treatment for the people.
Nguyen Hai
