The Ho Chi Minh City Tropical Diseases Institute has stopped asking patients to sign agreements before vaccinations in line with a recently issued Health Ministry order.

Those seeking vaccinations at these locations have recently been forced to read and sign documents declaring that they have agreed to be vaccinated.

But Thursday, patients at the Tropical Diseases Institute were no longer asked to read and sign the forms.

The institute’s Deputy Director Tran Tinh Hien said the center had decided to stop the practice after a meeting in the morning.

“The agreements were meant to encourage doctors to examine and consult the patients, but it turned out that it scared the patients,” Hien said.

Huan said the ministry had never required such declarations. The ministry only requires doctors to examine and consult with patients before vaccinating them, he said.

Patients at the institute Wednesday said they weren’t sure what the declaration was about and didn’t understand why they had to sign it.

Many people opted to leave for services at other hospitals after viewing the forms.

Senior doctors at several institutes recently requiring such signatures said all patients would be consulted before deciding whether or not to sign the declaration, but a District 11 resident named Hung said no doctor at the Tropical Diseases Institute had consulted with him.

“A nurse gave me the declaration, told me to sign it and that was it,” said Hung who had taken his daughter in for a rabies shot. The girl had fallen ill after contact with a rabid animal.

Nguyen Ngoc Lam of the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association said Vietnam had no law about such agreements between doctors and patients.

Lam said ordinary people cannot be expected to know how vaccines would affect them. Doctors must be the ones to decide if vaccination is the right idea, even when the patients insist on having the shots, he said.

Nguyen Van Binh, deputy head of the ministry’s Preventive Health and Environment Administration, said “hospitals are the ones that have to make guarantees, not patients.”

Binh cited a ministry regulation which states that vaccination centers must guarantee proper equipment and trained staff before administering vaccines.

Doctors have to examine the patients before giving them the shots and keep the vaccinated patients at the hospital for at least 30 minutes to monitor for side effects, according to the ministry regulation.

Binh said his administration would be implementing surprise inspections at several local medical centers to ensure that they followed the ministry’s order to halt the use of vaccine agreement forms.

The ministry has asked provincial and municipal health departments across the country to prevent the practice at any medical center under their control.

Binh said his agency would also introduce more regulations on vaccinations soon.

Reported by Thanh Tung – Lien Chau