Vietnam eyes premium hospital services to attract wealthy patients

Anh Kiet 00:49, 2019/08/16

There is growing demand for premium services in hospitals and the proposal will allow this demand to be met.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Health is drafting a proposal to plan premium healthcare upgrades to lure high-income patients since early October, local media reported.

Accordingly, the cost of premium rooms in public hospitals will rise 37% from VND2.5 million (US$107) per day to VND4 million (US$172), Nguyen Nam Lien, head of Department of Planning and Finance under the Ministry of Health said, adding that each premium room will have one patient bed, with an extra bed for a family member and space to receive visits and nurses on call at all times, for which it’s worth the cost.

A premium hospital room is seen in Viet Duc University Hospital in downtown Hanoi. Photo: Kim Oanh

Many people have questioned that the cost of US$172 for a hospital room is too high, equal to that of a five-star hotel room.

Lien said that there is growing demand for premium services in hospitals and the proposal will allow this demand to be met. Moreover, Vietnamese go abroad because there is a lack of top notch treatment and facilities in the country, Lien added.

According to statistics of the Ministry of Health, every year Vietnamese people spend more than US$2 billion on medical examination and treatment abroad. On the other hand, more and more people participate in various policies of commercial health insurance so it is necessary to have high-quality healthcare services for them to benefit from the insurance.

"If the plan goes on, Vietnamese patients will enjoy healthcare services in the country at lower costs than in other countries, contributing to local hospitals’ income," Lien stressed. Many private hospitals now apply room costs from several million to tens of million VND.

Four centrally-run hospitals in the country namely Bach Mai, Viet Duc, K, Cho Ray are financially self-reliant. The Ministry of Health said that this proposal, when in effect, will help hospitals offer high-quality medical services.

This is the first time that the Ministry of Health has issued regulations on hospital rooms to ensure the cost of medical services in public hospitals to be consistent with the quality provided.

The charges have been set in reference with the ones applied in private and international hospitals. Public hospitals can issue their own charges, but cannot exceed the ceiling set by the Ministry of Health.

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