Hai Duong provincial level general hospital. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Historically, the mostly publicly financed healthcare system in Vietnam has only been able to afford to pour resources into ahandful of central level hospitals in big cities, forcing patients living inremote areas with serious diseases to go to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City fortreatment.
Aside from the additional costs for transportation and living, by the time apatient has reached the central hospital, the ‘golden window’ to best treattheir condition might have closed long ago.
But for the last decade, an initiative called Project 1816 has rotated expertsand professional medical staff from central-level to local-level hospitals,reducing the overcrowding in hospitals’ higher administrative units andimproving the quality of medical service delivery in rural areas.
The ‘satellite hospitals’ project has enabled local hospitals to acquireexperience, technology, devices and manpower from central level hospitals. Manymore citizens can now enjoy medical advances right in their hometowns.
December 2017 marks 10 years of implementing Project 1816. So far,central-level hospitals have sent some 4,000 medical professionals to trainmedical staff in local hospitals, while some 4,800 techniques have beentransferred and 2.5 million patients have been treated locally instead of travellingto big cities, the Ministry of Health said.
From death’s hand
An 85-year-old patient from rural Can Xuyen town of the central province of HaTinh, was admitted to the hospital with severe chest pain, breathing difficultiesand headache.
Dr Nguyen Van Loi, from Cam Xuyen General Hospital’s intensive care unit, saidthat since the hospital did not have echocardiography (heart ultrasound)machine or other advanced monitoring techniques, they could only do basic testsand ask the patient to rest. The octogenarian patient later went into coma andher heart stopped beating.
As luck would have it, at the time there was a working group from Hanoi’sHospital E, a 50-year-old central level hospital under the Ministry of Health’smanagement, visiting Cam Xuyen town, where the local general hospital isconsidered a satellite facility.
Doctor Do Quoc Phong, from Hospital E’s intensive care unit, immediatelyperformed heart reanimation and injected adrenaline into the patient’s veins.Five minutes later, her heart resumed beating.
Phong said the patient would have had little chance of survival unlessemergency techniques had been applied in a timely manner.
In just three days (January 8-10), Hospital E’s group of doctors blessedseveral patients with their professional expertise.
The heart doctor’s table was always crowded, showing locals’ real need forcardiology care. Meanwhile, both general hospitals of Cam Xuyen and Ky Anhtowns were woefully lacking in doctors and especially in those with an in-depthknowledge of cardiology.
Because of this, another patient, 53 and also from Cam Xuyen, has not had hisheart thoroughly checked up in the five years since he had his heart operationcarried out in Hue city. Only on this occasion did he have the chance to gethis heart tested carefully and receive plenty of helpful answers.
Hospital E group also noted high demand for treatment of upper respiratoryproblems or ENT (ear, nose, and throat) disorder in children, and bone andjoint issues for the elderly.
Hospital E’s deputy director Le Quoc Viet said the working group was deployedin order to assess the real condition – both in terms of infrastructure andmanpower – in Cam Xuyen general hospital and Ky Anh general hospital. Duringthis trip, 1,200 patients were treated, including many whose previouslyunidentified afflictions were finally diagnosed.
Practical benefits
Professor Le Ngoc Thanh, head of Hospital E, said that the hospital has beenproviding assistance to 10 provincial level hospitals (Thai Binh, Thanh Hoa,Bac Ninh, Bac Giang and Hai Duong provinces, and Hai Phong City), regionalgeneral hospitals like Tinh Gia and Ngoc Lac in the central province of Thanh Hoa,and two district-level hospitals (Cam Xuyen and Ky Anh).
Most of the expertise is focused on cardiology, injury treatment, intensivecare and poison control, Thanh added.
Thai Binh General Hospital, with the help of Hospital E, will open for thefirst time a cardiothoracic (heart and chest) surgery faculty in 2018 toperform open heart surgery, lung surgery, mediastinal and thoracic surgery –all of which were impossible before.
Thanh Hoa General Hospital is considered to have mastered most of thetechniques it has received. The central province has invested 34 billion VND (1.5million USD) to build new surgery theatres and buy new medical equipment to aidin open heart surgery.
The health ministry said that one of the most significant results of thesatellite hospital project is that it motivates provincial-level hospitals toupgrade infrastructure and invest in training medical staff, which in turnbrings benefits to patients.
Similarly, Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi has trained hundreds of doctors in theremote areas of the northern mountainous province of Yen Bai in many areas ofmedicine and skills – diagnostic imaging, gastroenterology, cardiology andsurgery – since it first co-operated with the province under Project 1816 tenyears ago, according to Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Quoc Anh, Bach Mai Hospital’sdirector.
Vu Manh Cuong, deputy director of communications and emulation under the healthministry, said that in the coming years, one priority will be an informationnetwork where surgeries can be live-streamed, and training and educationactivities can be done online. The $81 million telemedicine programme, or theremote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunicationstechnology, part of the Project 1816, will also receive special attention.
In addition, communication works must be stepped up so that local people areaware of which diseases and conditions can now be handled by local doctors,hopefully improving the visitation rate, Cuong added. - VNA
VNA
