Outlook examines healthcare

The nation's healthcare has seen great improvements in recent years, with expansion of health services to remote areas and reform of the health insurance system.

This month's issue of Outlook examines the successes of healthcare reform across the country. We report on expansion of healthcare services in rural provinces such as Cao Bang, where provincial hospital facilities have improved dramatically. Back in the cities, we find that students have also benefited thanks to the reform of health cover in schools.

We weigh up the pros and cons of private and public health clinics, and report that public hospitals often provide the best value for money.

We also explore the challenges still facing the health sector, meet one of Viet Nam's top surgeons working on fixing cleft palates, and take a special look at the plight of the nation's underpaid and overworked nurses.

Elsewhere in this issue, we tour the ancient city of Hue by cyclo, sample a delicious meal of fried worms, and meet a French martial arts champ who is helping popularise kick-boxing in HCM City.

Readers can also catch up on what's hot in the country's culinary, sports and arts scenes – and check out listings for everything from bars to embassies. Outlook retails for VND15,000 at news-stands, major hotels and restaurants and can be purchased at the head office of the Viet Nam News at 11 Tran Hung Dao Street, Ha Noi, or at our HCM City office at 120 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street. — VNS

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Industrial zone authority launches healthcare plan

HCM CITY — The HCM City Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority (HEPZA) has worked with local drug producers to launch a programme to take care of workers' health with the use of locally made medicine.

The programme aims to provide better healthcare at lower costs for nearly 300,000 workers in the city's industrial parks (IPs) and export processing zones (EPZs).

Most workers at IPs and EPZs are migrants who work long hours in potentially harmful working environments.

Their accommodations often do not meet standards, making it easy for them to be infected with disease, according to the city Department of Health.

Most enterprises in IPs and EPZs have healthcare rooms, but attention has not been paid to worker's health as enterprises have invested little in healthcare rooms or facilities, according to a HEPZA official.

Tran Dinh Khoa, sales director of Sai Gon Pharmaceutical Company Limited (Sapharco), said his company had supplied medicine for 27 healthcare rooms and clinics in IPs and EPZs.

However, the supply of medicine for these facilities was insufficient, Khoa said.

"Responding to the programme, Sapharco will take the initiative in supplying medicines with the best quality and stable prices for healthcare rooms and clinics in IPs and EPZs," he said.

Other local and joint-stock pharmaceutical companies, including Savipharm, Fresenius Kabi Bidiphar and Ampharco, have also participated in the programme.

The programme is also a response to the Ministry of Health's campaign to encourage people to give priority to made-in Viet Nam medicines which have good quality at reasonable prices.

Pham Khanh Phong Lan, deputy director of the city Department of Health, said to encourage people to give priority for using made-in-Viet Nam drugs, her department would organise seminars and visits to local pharmaceutical companies and doctors.

The city has 20 pharmaceutical companies and they all meet high standards.

Lan has also asked the Ministry to encourage the use of Vietnamese drugs, including investing more in the production of specialised drugs, restricting imports that can be produced locally, and enhancing the quality of locally produced medicines. — VNS

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