Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien and officials of relevant departments chaired an online talk via the government website to answer the public’s queries on Jan. 7.

The talk which lasted for almost two hours focused on hospital overload, the reform of financial mechanism for public health establishments, hospital fees, health insurance and health workers’ expertise and ethics.

Citizens voiced their concern over health workers’ responsibility, “under the table” practice pharmaceutical business at hospitals and preventive medicine development.

The Minister said UN considers health indexes of the UN Millennium Development Goals that Vietnam recorded, especially the expansion of health network from central to local scale, as a bright spot.

Vietnam has made achievements in cardiovascular intervention, vaccine production and organ transplant, she said.
However, she said, overload at cardiovascular, cancer and paediatrics departments in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City ’s hospitals is a problem facing the sector.

Patient overload is serious in the country where the bed rate stands at only 20.5 per 10,000 people. The rate under the World Health Organisation's standard is at least 33/10,000 people, she said.

She noted that in the future the ministry will increase the number of beds, open more hospitals, reinforcing grassroots health systems and the network of family doctors and increase medical staff./.