Hospital fees increase, service quality "powerless"

Despite the increase in hospital fees, patients still have to share a bed with 3-4 people, still have to wait in line for a month for an ultrasound or CT scan; the rooms do not have air conditioning, the toilets are lacking and dirty... These are the minimum services that patients hope will be improved when hospital fees increase.

However, representatives of hospitals in Hanoi all said that increasing hospital fees does not necessarily mean an immediate increase in the quality of medical services.

Solving the problem of hospital overload is a difficult problem. (Photo: VNA)

Cannot increase overnight

Talking to reporters about the issue of overloading and patients having to share beds, Mr. Le Van Quan, Deputy Director of K Hospital, admitted: "Currently, in the hospital's Internal Medicine Department, there is still a situation of 2-3, even 4 people per bed. Adjusting hospital fees while requiring immediate changes in the quality and attitude of medical staff is very difficult."

Regarding the current solution to reduce overload, Mr. Quan affirmed that the problem of patients having to share beds at Quan Su or Tam Hiep facilities cannot be solved overnight. However, in mid-August, the hospital will open a new facility in Tan Trieu (Thanh Tri) with two internal medicine departments with about 20-50 beds and 51 beds for surgery, hoping that the overload situation will be reduced.

Speaking at a meeting with representatives of 38 central hospitals on new hospital fees held by the Ministry of Health last week, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Anh - Director of Bach Mai Hospital said that not only when there is a policy to adjust hospital fees, the quality of medical examination and treatment will be upgraded, but for many years now the hospital has invested in equipment, machinery, and hospital renovation.

According to Mr. Nguyen Quoc Anh, the increased price means the money collected goes into the State's public fund to be reused for patients, not into the hospital staff's fund. The higher the revenue, the higher the reinvestment for patients, making treatment more effective.

The Director of Bach Mai Hospital also added that each year, the hospital also spends 6-8 billion VND to provide free medical examination and treatment for poor patients who cannot afford to pay hospital fees.

Over the past two years, Bach Mai Hospital has invested 80 billion VND to upgrade modern equipment such as installing air conditioning systems, purchasing additional ventilators, anesthesia machines, etc.

powerless

Mr. Nguyen Tien Quyet - Director of Viet Duc Hospital said that the hospital's policy is to have more service rooms, partly to increase revenue for staff, and partly to have conditions to improve the quality of medical examination and treatment services. However, patients cannot just want to have them, but must register two weeks in advance.

"Currently, the hospital has 1,100 beds, including 60 service rooms on demand. There are many people who want to register for service rooms, but our service rooms are always 'full,' not enough to meet the needs of patients," said Mr. Quyet.

Deputy Director of K Hospital, Le Van Quan, said that there are currently many patients in need of service rooms, but the hospital cannot meet their needs.

At K Hospital, the number of on-demand service rooms is very limited. The entire hospital has only two on-demand service rooms, with 8 beds. The price of each bed in this room is 150,000 VND.

Regarding the issue of on-demand medical service rooms, Mr. Quan explained that every hospital wants to build service rooms to have money to improve. The difficulty for the K Hospital facility in Quan Su is that due to the limited area of ​​the hospital, the number of patient rooms cannot be expanded any further.

Most hospital leaders believe that it is not only when hospital fees are adjusted that hospitals will improve the quality of medical examination and treatment, but this issue has been of concern to the health sector for a long time. However, the situation of patient overload continues to occur year after year, causing pressure on the quality of medical examination and treatment services.

Therefore, the problem of how to increase service quality in line with medical costs cannot be solved by hospitals alone, it is also a difficult problem for the entire medical industry./.

According to Vietnam+ (NT)