Patients wait for examinations at Hanoi’s National Institute of Ophthalmology.

Some of best state hospitals in Vietnam are swamped with three patients to a bed as locals simply don’t trust district- and province-level healthcare.

The patients’ relatives, who must carry out general nurse duties, sit or lie on the floor. Many spill out onto the ground in the corridor and outside.

“The hospitals are overcrowded,” says Nguyen Chi Cuong as he stands over his 78-year-old mother, who is sharing the bed with another injured woman.

“My mother has to wait until next week for her leg and arm surgeries. All hospitals in the city are jammed with patients. All we can do is wait.”

The Ministry of Health said that on average throughout 2007, the country had an average 100 hospital beds per 122 patients.

But if only central-level healthcare establishments are counted and local level centers are left out, the number stands at 140 patients per 100 beds.

“Our neonatal, gastroentology, and respiratory medicine departments have two or three children sharing each bed,” said Nguyen Thanh Liem, director of the Central Pediatric Hospital in Hanoi.

The pressure is now not only on patients but also on health workers.

“I have to stand eight hours a day,” says Trinh Thi Hau, a nurse at the hospital. “Sometimes, we have only 15 minutes for lunch because of all the patients.”

The number of patients at the average hospital in Hanoi exceeds capacity by 25-30 percent, according to the capital city’s health department.

In addition, patients often rush to centrally-run hospitals, causing a serious overload, because they have no confidence in local hospitals.

“Several months ago, I took my sick son to my district hospital for a check-up. However, the diagnosis was incorrect and the disease became more serious,” said farmer Nguyen Thi Hanh from Hanoi’s Dong Anh District.

“Learning from our experience, this time we made a beeline for the Central Pediatric Hospital,” she said, fanning her ill son with an old newspaper while waiting in line for a check-up in the hospital’s stuffy corridor.

Minister of Health Nguyen Quoc Trieu recently announced the country’s plans to fix the overcrowding problem which include adding some 45,000 extra hospital beds by 2010 and another 60,000 by 2020.

Bach Mai Hospital representatives said the hospital is now opening earlier and keeping longer full-staff hours while also offering higher quality medical services for patients willing to foot the bill.

Thanh Nhan Hospital in the capital city has extended outpatient treatment services to ease the overcrowding.

But the overwhelming demand is still a problem.

Reported by Bao Anh