Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam’s Communist Party said state-owned hospitals will not be privatized, effectively ending a debate of the past few years over a plan to diversify ownership of treatment facilities in the health sector.

But Vietnam encourages the private sector to join in building new hospitals run as joint-stock companies, joint ventures and private clinics, Saturday’s Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberation Saigon) daily run by the Ho Chi Minh City Communist Party chapter cited a Politburo directive as saying.

The Politburo said the government should use state budget funds, bond issuance receipts and foreign aid to upgrade state-owned hospitals and provide treatment to the poor, ethnic minorities and children below the age of 6, the daily said.

In 2007 the Health Ministry and Ho Chi Minh City government planned to allow Cho Ray Hospital to sell shares to the public but the project was stalled because of social organisations blocked it, fearing a rise in fees.

Vietnam’s state-run healthcare system is straining to treat a population of 86 million that is vulnerable to a wide variety of infectious and non-infectious diseases.

The middle class that has emerged in the booming economy in recent years has used internationally-operated clinics or traveled to Singapore or Thailand for treatment of serious illnesses.

The health sector’s value accounted for only 1.25 per cent of Vietnam’s gross domestic product of US$87 billion (RM313 billion) in 2008, down from 1.41 per cent in 2007, government figures show.

Source: Reuters