Hanoi (VNA) - The Vietnam Association of Financial Investors(VAFI) has proposed that the Prime Minister privatise State-owned hospitals toreform the healthcare system and improve the quality of health care services.

According to VAFI, the Government needs to implement changes in three stages toimprove the quality of the country’s public health care services.

The first stage is to transform all the State-owned hospitals from a public tobusiness organisation, and operate in accordance with the Law of Enterprises,VAFI said in its proposal.

“The State-owned hospitals have to publicise their financial reports, businessoperations and must be audited annually like listed companies, and each must berun by a management board and a supervisory board,” the VAFI said.

To help them operate safely and efficiently, and avoid bankruptcy anddissolution, the Government must set a limit on the total loans provided tothese hospitals, which will permit their borrowings to not exceed 50 percent oftheir ownership equity, it said.

[HCM City’s hospitals to adopt financial autonomy]

The second stage is to equitise the largest hospitals, such as Bach Mai, VietDuc and Cho Ray hospitals, the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology,and those that volunteer to be equitised.

“These hospitals should be listed on the stock market, so that their businessoperations are transparent and public; thus, they will be able to raise capitalfrom the securities market.”

In the third stage, these hospitals should acquire the smaller ones that arelocated in the surrounding provinces and districts, and become parenthospitals, VAFI added.

The plan is to turn the current hospitals into corporations in which theGovernment holds more than 65 percent of their charter capital and set up theirbranches at the district level.

People who reside in the urban and countryside areas can visit the branches ofthese hospitals in their local areas, instead of struggling to go to the bigcities for health care services, according to the association.

According to the association, the Government has had a lot of policies toimprove the quality of the healthcare service sector, such as disbursing a hugeamount of State budget to the public hospitals to improve their operations,raising more capital from the private sector and the society, and buildingsatellite hospitals to reduce the large number of patients visiting centralhospitals.

These policies have improved the quality of public hospitals by equipping themwith advanced machines, and enhancing the profession of doctors and nursesworking in these hospitals.

However, both patients and hospitals have been facing difficulties in therecent years, which have not been resolved or improved, the VAFI said.

The hospitals have spent a lot to purchase machines and equipment, but theequality of the purchased products is not good enough, resulting in relativeincrease in fees and loss to the State budget.

Patients have to pay “unofficial fees”, besides the official ones to please thedoctors and nurses, to get good quality health care services. Meanwhile, theemployees in the hospitals have been underperforming, as they receive lowsalary, while the management of the hospitals is not efficient.

In addition to this, the overload of patients at the central hospitals in bigcities, such as Hanoi and HCM City, shows that there is a big gap in thequality and professionalism of district-level and city-level doctors andnurses, VAFI said.-VNA