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| Observation and care for patients at the private general hospital Hồng Ngọc in Hà Nội. The Ministry of Health wants to ensure private health facilities are offering safe and high quality treatment. — VNA/VNS Photo Hữu Oai |
Viet Nam News
HCM CITY — The Ministry of Health has instructed health departments nationwide to strictly inspect private health clinics to ensure they are offering safe and high quality treatment.
Local health departments will be required to disseminate information about health examination and treatment to all private health facilities and ensure that local private practitioners have certificates to practise in their field.
The departments will also be required to publicise on their respective websites lists of licensed private health facilities that have violated regulations on health examinations and treatment.
The ministry said that more effective inspections at private health facilities would also help to identify and correct violations in a timely manner.
The country has 206 private hospitals and more than 30,000 health clinics, according to the Ministry of Health.
Some of the violations that have occurred include: employing foreign doctors without a licence to practise from the Vietnamese government; using medicine without origin or medicine not allowed in Việt Nam; and doctors promoting expertise in fields which they do not have licence to operate.
HCM City’s Department of Health said that it would follow the ministry’s instruction and would require its district health offices to enhance supervision at all clinics.
The city would offer its third training course for general health clinics next month, and investors in the clinics who have yet to attend must register for the course as well.
In June, the city department conducted its fourth assessment this year of the quality of 24 general health clinics.
Of the 24 clinics, 15 of them failed to meet most of the department’s quality standards.
The names of the 15 clinics have been published on the department’s website.
Inspectors found that the clinics had not publicised prices of technical services or had not carried out activities for management of tests and biological safety in testing rooms. Some had used medical techniques that had not been approved by the health department. — VNS
