Avoid waste in investing in medical equipment

(Baonghean) - After receiving information that Bio-Rad Company (an American medical equipment research and manufacturing company) spent 2.2 million USD bribing officials of Vietnamese hospitals to sell equipment, the Ministry of Health conducted an inspection and discovered that many hospitals were wasting money in purchasing medical equipment.

In Nghe An, the waste in investing in medical equipment also occurs in some private hospitals that have the means to purchase it. There are hospitals that have invested in 2 Japanese magnetic resonance imaging machines (0.4 Tesla magnetic force), a CT scanner (16 slices), a digital X-ray machine, a modern automatic testing lab, a modern operating room... However, due to the lack of doctors, the above machines have not been fully exploited to serve the treatment of patients. This leads to people having to go to higher-level hospitals for treatment. This is a common situation in private hospitals today...

While some private hospitals have “surplus” medical equipment, most state hospitals in Nghe An are lacking in operational equipment. The Friendship General Hospital has 46 departments and rooms with over 300 specialist doctors. After moving to a new facility with over 700 beds, it has become a modern hospital in the North Central region; however, its medical equipment is only at a basic level and is in need of more modern equipment to serve the needs of medical examination and treatment for the people.

An expert specializing in research on investment in medical equipment said: Currently, the investment level for a grade 1 provincial hospital is at least 1.5 billion VND/bed, a central hospital is about 5 billion VND/bed (including radiation and imaging equipment). Investing in an MRI machine with a magnetic force of 1.5 Tesla costs about 38 billion VND, the cost for one year of replacing Helium gas is about 1.2 billion VND; the cost of operation, repair, and maintenance is about 100 million VND/year; the cost of replacing damaged machines is from several hundred million to 1 billion VND. Investing in this type of machine requires an average of 40-50 patients per day to fully utilize its functions. With the current very high price of imaging, it is very difficult for provincial hospitals and below to reach that figure, while the machine can only be used for a maximum of 10 years.

With the rapid progress of modern medicine, medical equipment is extremely important for any hospital. However, the trust of patients is only placed in the professional level and medical ethics of the doctor, not in modern equipment. Therefore, investment in medical equipment needs to be calculated reasonably to avoid waste. If it is a public hospital, it will cause waste of the state budget, if it is a private hospital, it will cause waste for the investor, and the final consequence is that the patient has to bear, because the price of hospital fees and medical services increases. For private hospitals, it is necessary to avoid the situation of competing to buy equipment to compete to create a "brand" without paying attention to building a team of skilled and ethical doctors. The health sector should have a mechanism to facilitate hospitals to share modern equipment such as MRI machines, CT scanners, etc. Our economy still has difficulties, people's income is not high, so if hospitals invest together and effectively exploit modern machinery, they will exploit full capacity and reduce medical examination and treatment costs...

Tran Hong Co