Promoting international cooperation to improve the quality of medical examination and treatment

(Baonghean) - In recent years, through international cooperation activities in health, the quality of medical examination and treatment in the province has been improved. At the same time, activities to exchange experiences and mobilize funding for the implementation of tasks of the Nghe An Health sector have also been strengthened.

Professor Michel Collet - Lecturer at Brest University (France) trained at Nghe An Maternity and Pediatrics Hospital. Photo: Thanh Le

In order to continuously improve the quality of medical examination and treatment for people, in recent years, Nghe An Health sector has actively promoted cooperation with countries around the world, with international organizations and foreign non-governmental organizations to seek financial support from foreign partners as well as technology transfer and human resource training for the Health sector...

In particular, the 2008 Provincial Health System Strengthening Project was implemented in Nghe An for 4 years (2010 - 2014) with a total project budget of 4,300,000 euros; the total number of medical equipment invested from the Project was 112 categories for Nghe An General Hospital, Northwest Regional General Hospital, Quynh Luu, Dien Chau, Do Luong, Tan Ky District General Hospitals and 171 Commune Health Stations, which contributed to improving the lack of equipment, responding well to the improvement of quality and development of medical services according to the technical classification of the Ministry of Health.

Since receiving medical equipment from the project, the units have deployed and used it effectively, 100% of the equipment from the project was used immediately after completing the handover, the hospitals developed 7,749 more medical services according to technical levels, meeting the people's need to access medical services, contributing to improving the quality of medical examination and treatment, the number of medical examinations and the number of patients treated at district hospitals increased significantly.

Currently, the province is continuing to propose to continue implementing the project "Strengthening the health system at Nghe An province level", using ODA capital from the German Government for the period 2017 - 2020.

Nghe An Oncology Hospital cooperated with Japanese experts to successfully implement the percutaneous gastrostomy technique. Photo: Thanh Le

Along with that, some projects such as the "Project to strengthen the capacity of the grassroots health system" in the period of 2012 - 2016 funded by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). This project focuses on training, coaching on vaccination, planning vaccination for general hospitals, district, city, town health centers and commune and ward health stations; organizing training on maternal and child health care for commune health station staff; supporting the implementation of research, initiatives and policies to develop grassroots health. Or the project "Support for hospital waste treatment" in the period of 2012 - 2017 from loans from the World Bank has been effective in environmental protection in some hospitals.

With the strength of international cooperation, in recent times, the team of doctors and staff of Nghe An General Hospital has received support from embassies, international organizations, and foreign experts from Poland, the US, Korea, etc. in human resource training, technical support, and specialized medical equipment packages for surgical surgery.

Thanks to cooperation with international experts, the Hospital has mastered many advanced techniques and has affirmed its position from successfully performing open heart surgery; coronary artery stent intervention; kidney transplant surgery; vascular surgery; infertility treatment by in vitro fertilization, etc.

In the spirit of international friendship and solidarity, implementing the Memorandum of Understanding between the leaders of Nghe An Department of Health and Xieng Khouang Department of Health (Laos) in September 2015, Nghe An General Hospital has developed a project to strengthen long-term cooperation in the health sector between the two hospitals by sending doctors from Nghe An General Hospital to train directly and welcoming a delegation of doctors from Xieng Khouang Hospital to study. From 2016 to now, the hospital has sent nearly 20 doctors to train and transfer techniques to hospitals in Xieng Khouang province and this hospital has sent 10 medical staff to train at Nghe An General Hospital. Implementing the Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation contents between Nghe An and Xieng Khouang provinces in 2017. Accordingly, Nghe An is the investor of the Xieng Khouang Friendship Hospital project with 200 beds funded by the Vietnamese Government.

As for Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital, it is one of the units that benefited from the component project of the provincial and regional hospital development project (phase II) funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The project has a total investment of 186 billion VND to invest in upgrading Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital through the provision of medical equipment and training of medical staff, ensuring that the hospital has the capacity to provide high-quality medical examination and treatment services to people in the province and in the region.

In October 2016, Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital received support from JICA for 164 devices such as Citi scanners, digital X-rays, endoscopic surgery systems, etc. "JICA (Japan) has solved the hospital's major difficulty in funding equipment investment. Thanks to the investment in new, modern equipment, the hospital has applied advanced, specialized techniques, contributing to improving the quality of medical examination and treatment for the people," said Dr. Tran Van Cuong - Deputy Director of Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital.

Using testing equipment supported by JICA at Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital. Photo: Thanh Le

In addition, to transfer advanced techniques from countries around the world, Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital has coordinated with the Central Obstetrics Hospital to organize a training course on updating advanced ultrasound for prenatal diagnosis between Vietnam and Japan for doctors working in the field of obstetrics and diagnostic imaging at hospitals in the province and neighboring areas. Professor Michel Collet from the Brest University Center - French Republic directly updated knowledge surrounding the issue of: prenatal diagnosis; amniocentesis and ultrasound consultation of fetal morphology as well as amniocentesis methods to detect abnormalities in the fetus... Prenatal diagnosis is the most necessary and scientific thing to do for pregnancy monitoring.

Similarly, Nghe An Oncology Hospital has recently received the transfer and successfully implemented the technique of percutaneous endoscopically assisted gastrostomy, without surgery. This technique is mainly used to support the treatment of patients with diseases of the pharynx, such as esophageal cancer, pharyngeal cancer, esophageal stenosis due to burn scars, patients needing gastrointestinal nutrition to prepare for radiotherapy, chemotherapy, etc. Japanese experts have provided technical documents, guiding the hospital's doctors to perform the procedure of placing a catheter directly through the skin with the support of gastroscopy for patients, using the hospital's machinery and equipment system and that of Create Medic Co, LDT - Japan.

Thus, international cooperation plays an extremely important role, especially in health care, which is one of the sectors that is considered to have strong application of science and technology. However, it must be recognized that international cooperation in the health sector of our province is still limited, especially not attracting many investment resources for this field at an international level, medical staff trained abroad are still few, only sending a number of staff to attend specialized seminars abroad to update knowledge. Especially for provincial hospitals, the field of international cooperation is still passive.

According to Dr. Tran Van Cuong - Deputy Director of Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital, the reason for the passive and seasonal nature of international cooperation is due to the lack of facilities and human resources in hospitals. The hospital has not had the conditions to send staff to study long-term courses abroad, but has mainly stopped at transferring domestic techniques. "To improve the quality of medical examination and treatment, in the coming time when implementing autonomy, the hospital will stabilize its human resources, train human resources and transfer specialized techniques from the above countries is the task that Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital is aiming for in order to realize the goal of developing a number of key specialties of international stature", Dr. Tran Van Cuong affirmed.

According to Mr. Hoang Van Hao - Acting Director of the Department of Health: "International cooperation is one of the seven inseparable core tasks of the health sector. The current difficulty is that international cooperation resources in the form of non-refundable aid have been reduced. Therefore, the current trend is that the Central Government, the provincial government and hospitals coordinate to attract resources from countries and international organizations to invest in the health sector. At the same time, the province and the sector direct units to send staff abroad to study combined with the form of training to invite foreign experts to teach and transfer techniques to the units".

Thanh Le