The Hanoitimes - A recent boom in hi-tech medical operations in Viet Nam has brought recognition to the country and foreign patients, who are in desperate need of surgery, Ha Nguyen reports.

Thirteen-year-old Khenkham Limming from Laos is recovering from laparoscopic surgery for a choledochal cyst performed by a group of doctors led by Professor Nguyen Thanh Liem from the National Hospital of Pediatrics (NHP).

"Thanks to the Vietnamese doctors, my son’s complicated ailments have been treated and he is recovering more and more each day," Khenkham’s mother said, adding that her family was told that her son would die if he didn’t receive the operation in time.

Asked why her son didn’t have the operation in Laos or in another country, the mother said, "The gastroscopy operation is still limited in my country. So I decided to bring my child to Viet Nam because NHP’s doctors are excellent and the hospital fees are affordable."

The mother brought her son to the NHP’s General Paediatric Department in Ha Noi, a newly opened medical clinic that uses hi-tech health care to treat children’s diseases, including respiratory, digestive-cardiovascular, endocrinology, nephrology and urology, neurology, cancer and surgery.

"With a professional team of doctors, most of whom have been trained abroad and at NHP, we can cure 40 different difficult diseases in the thoracic cavity and the abdominal cavity through laparoscopic and thoracoscopic surgeries," Prof Liem, who is also director of NHP, told Viet Nam News.

Antonio Dessanti, Professor of Paediatric Surgery and the head of the University of Sassari’s Unit of Paediatric Surgery at Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Hospital in Italy, e-mailed Viet Nam News saying that while he was studying liver resections using new technologies from the late and famous Vietnamese Prof Ton That Tung in 1989, he met Dr Liem, a young and skilled surgeon who worked in the surgery department.

"Professor Liem is an excellent paediatric surgeon, with great organisational skills. He is also a great teacher.

"The department of paediatric surgery is a very high quality department, and it’s a pleasure to work with him and his fantastic medical staff," Dessanti said.

"Liem and his colleagues are famous across the world for their skills in performing complex and original surgical procedures in open surgery and in videolaparoscopy.

"In my hospital in Italy, I use modern surgical equipment to perform videosurgery, which I learned about in Liem’s department. His technical and organisational skills are very high, and I hope that the Vietnamese Government will continue their efforts to improve paediatric surgeries, giving more funds that will enable the most modern technologies for laparoscopic surgery (robotics surgery)," he said.

Dr Fred Igama of the Baguio General Hospital&Medical Center in the Philippines, who together with two colleagues, took part in a three-month course o­n endoscopic surgery at NHP, said that Viet Nam was o­ne of the first countries in the world to successfully carry out endoscopic surgery o­n a choledochal cyst and a diaphragmatic hernia.

"Molecular biology tests to detect inherited diseases prenatally are excellent, giving corrective results for doctors to deal with heavy ailments. They also perform the first large pericardectomy, the first nearly total pancreatectomy and the first laparoscopic operation for rectal atresia in the world," Igama said.

One of Igama’s fellowship doctors, Dr Roberto Lozada of the Iloila Doctors hospital, said that they’ve learned a lot from Prof Liem and his colleagues.

"We were very surprised at their surgical skills and were in awe of their fluid operations o­n so many difficult cases, including the first successful surgery o­n a premature baby’s patent ductus arteriosus.

"The Vietnamese doctors are very nice, they’ve taught us about these difficult operations and have helped us apply the knowledge to our hospitals in the Philippines," Filipino doctors told Viet Nam News.

"Vietnamese doctors, particularly those at NHP, are the leading doctors in the world o­n endoscopic surgery," they said.

Hundreds of kidney transplants and several liver transplants have been successfully performed by Vietnamese doctors from NHP, the Military Medical Institute, the National Liver Transplant Council and the General Hospital in the Mekong River Delta province of Kien Giang, the HCM City People’s Hospital and many others with support from foreign doctors from Japan, Belgium, France, South Korea, Italy and many more.

International co-operation o­n health care has improved since the 1990s. The health sector has been co-operating with 50 foreign countries and organisations, as well as with non-governmental organisations.

"We’ve received a lot of non-refundable aid and preferential capital resources for training experts," said Health Minister, Dr Nguyen Quoc Trieu.

He said that the Official Development Assistance (ODA) had been injected into improving grassroots health clinics, the development of hi-tech treatments, programmes o­n the health improvement of mothers and children, nutrition and the fight against malaria and HIV/AIDS.

Viet Nam had successfully prevented and treated many epidemics, including SARS in 2003. It had also produced the Sabin vaccine, transferred by Japan, to fight against measles to eliminate paralytics by the end of this year, said Trieu.

"Vietnamese doctors have managed very well how to use gastroscopy to perform o­n inborn cardiovascular diseases and o­n test-tube babies, and to make transplants of kidney and livers," he said.

Dozens of foreign-invested projects have been granted licenses, including a Viet Nam - Japan joint venture producing medical equipment, the Viet Nam-France Hospital and many international general and specialised clinics.

"The health sector aims to promote further co-ordination with foreign countries and organisations to train its personnel and managers to eliminate TB and vitamin A deficiency, as well as diseases such as swine flu and many others," the minister said, adding that this year Viet Nam would have access to digital medical equipment produced by the Viet Nam-South Korea Joint Venture Company.

Siemens has been chosen as the supplier for many international and local projects, providing hundreds of diagnostic imaging systems, such as Computed Tomography systems, Magnetic Resonance Imaging systems, Radiology Systems and Ultrasound Systems for many big hospitals and clinics nationwide, said Erdal Elver, president and CEO of Siemens Viet Nam.

Two advanced PET.CT and Cyclotron systems installed recently at Cho Ray Hospital in HCM City and Bach Mai Hospital in Ha Noi had helped detect cancer in its earliest forms. In 2009, three state-of-the-art Artis zee Angiography systems were handed over to Khanh Hoa General Hospital, Nhi Dong 1 Hospital and Gia Dinh Hospital in HCM City, to help physicians in complicated interventional radiology and cardiology procedures, said Elver.

Push for private health

Apart from co-operating with foreign countries and organisations, the sector also aims to promote the private health sector.

Viet Nam’s private sector’s role in the country’s healthcare system has grown dramatically over the past decade, said Trieu.

The private healthcare sector would make a significant contribution by identifying key issues and options for discussion. In-depth understanding of key private healthcare sector issues would provide information that Ausaid, development partners and the Government of Viet Nam could use to plan future interventions that better engaged private sector health providers to achieve health sector goals and objectives, he said.

Health tourism

According to official figures, tourism treatments have brought Asian countries about US$1.6 billion in revenue, and this figure is expected to triple by 2012, according to figures from the Viet Nam Administration of Tourism.

The trend had not yet fully developed in Viet Nam, the VNAT said. o­ne prominent place in the country for health tourism was the central province of Khanh Hoa’s Nha Trang City. Visitors, including foreign travellers, particularly those arriving for treatment, increased by 30 per cent last year compared to 2008, said Hoang Quang, director of the Thap Ba Hot Spring Centre.

Quang told Viet Nam News that travellers were interested in dipping themselves in mud and hot mineral water at the Thap Ba Hot Spring.

According to research by the Pasteur Institute in Nha Trang, bathing in mud was an effective treatment for rheumatism and skin diseases.

Ha Noi was also a potential destination for health tourism, with its natural hot mineral springs in Kim Boi, Ba Vi, Khoang Xanh, Thac Da and Tan Da.

"With an experienced and professional team of local herbalists, travellers will be given the best advice o­n how to treat their diseases without medicine," said Dr Tuyet Anh, of the National Hospital of Traditional Health Care.

"But we still lack a comprehensive strategy for health tourism, such as complex services including general treatment areas, a physiotherapy, a nutritious foods service facility and a relaxing area for the performing of traditional folk music.

"With such comprehensive strategies, in addition to our available natural resources and traditional herbal medicines, health tourism in Viet Nam will become fully developed," said Mai Tien Dung, deputy director of the Ha Noi Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.