HÀ NỘI — The healthcare management department under the health ministry has asked directors of hospitals and health departments in cities and provinces to review and reorganise transport services for patients in hospitals.

Accordingly, the directors need to urgently review and remove regulations on choosing of hospital services for transporting patients to and from hospitals in case they don’t need medical help from hospitals.

Emergency patients should use hospital ambulances, including for transferring the patient to another hospital or for provision of first aid.

The patients have to sign a commitment, saying they are responsible for their own safety in case they choose such services themselves.

The transport of patients suffering from dangerous infectious diseases is required to follow the law on prevention of infectious diseases.

In addition, hospitals need to train and improve communication and the behaviour skills of hospital staff, such as security guards, towards patients and their family members.

Hospitals also need to supervise and strictly handle such actions of security guards that cause annoyance to patients when they visit hospitals.

The health ministry also sent a message to the Paediatrics Hospital to quickly send a report regarding a case in which the hospital’s security guards prevented an ambulance from leaving the premises, as reported in the media and on social networks recently.

The hospital has to send clarifications on the news report and propose solutions to the ministry before July 15.

According to reports in newspapers and on social networks, the incident happened last Saturday.

The security guards of the hospital had prevented an ambulance from leaving the hospital, even though it was carrying  a nine-month-old heart patient.

The patient’s family members had asked the hospital to send the baby home because he was not expected to survive after undergoing surgery last month.

The baby’s family rented an ambulance from the central Nghệ An Province to bring him back from Hà Nội.

The baby has died, newspapers report.

Hà Nội Police is investigating the incident.

Yesterday, the hospital’s Director Lê Thanh Hải held a meeting with relevant agencies and asked the AZ Company, which supplies security staff to the hospital, to suspend the work of the security team that was responsible for guarding the gates that day.

The hospital also said the contract with the AZ Company would be terminated after a week if the company did not ensure the quality of the security staff.

The hospital is working with the police to find out and clarify the problems and to report the entire case to the media. — VNS