First, shortly said, there come new private hospitals to compete with government's ones. Their prices are more expensive but, for they know what they are doing is BUSINESS, they treat patients or actually their CUSTOMERs, much better. This is how Vietnamese say " Tiền nào của nấy" (temporarily translated as "cheapest is dearest"). And for many people in big cities (in this article I mean Saigon) have become richer, they are willing to pay for better services, and hospitals working in old way have to change. Another side of the story is that the Ministry of health proposed new principles for their hospitals, which doesn't only manage but also encourage their staffs to improve public health service.
Certainly things just get better, a usual trend, with my 3 most recent experience with "hospitals", I'm sure. I see there are more staffs called "instructors" to answer my questions such as " where should I begin?"," where can I find ...", "which direction (in this crowded hospital) should I head to?" ...,some with just-nice-enough voices and some with truly enthusiasm. I see the doctors talk to me, asking me about my health problem in a gentle manner. Some even give extra comments out of the receipts. All that make me feel less scared when I need to check health. Some days ago,I went to Hospital for Ear-Nose and Throat (sorry I haven't found any better way to translate its name) and I saw patients filling a form to choose which doctors or department in the hospital had served them well. That's quite a nice thing to do. The patients now are the customers.
Unfortunately, hospitals, especially public ones, in any big cities like Saigon and Hanoi might have one problem in common: o v e r l o a d. Whenever I visit a hospital, all I see is crowds and crowds, from the parking lot to the queuing lines and every departments. Crowds are usually mixtures of poor and average income people, mostly old women in areas for insurance where they can pay only 5% of health-checking fee and 20% of medicine fee. Even patients pay without insurance coverage have to wait. Usually it takes a person without insurance coverage about 3 hours, and a whole morning with insurance coverage. Less crowded but more expensive are areas for "service" health care. However, "service-ed" patients still have to wait at quite comfortable seats until their numbers are called. To be more specific, my last visit to Ear-Nose & Throat hospital took me 3 hours, "service-ed". Luckily my boss is a nice man.
I also heard about international hospitals with decent healthcare service for not only patients but also patients' relatives, shining interior design, and of course equivalent fee. And I have never seen a crowd there so I think they will serve very well. That's a totally different scene with sleeping people in lobbies in public hospitals. So good for anyone who can afford high quality service.
The last problem with hospitals and healthcare system is Prices. This is out of my ability to discuss anything further than silently saving as much as possible money for future medicine bills.
Images of some hospitals in Saigon, collected from the Internet
-----------------------------places I've been to:
Hoa Hao Medic center
Cho Ray Hospital
Phu Nhuan district Hospital
District 1 Hospital
Ear-Nose-Throat Hospital
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