The development of traditional
medicine institutions in HCM City, including their integration into general
hospitals and clinics as envisaged under a national plan issued in 2003, has
been sluggish at best, health officials say.

Physicians preparing traditional medicine for patients. HCM City is still short of traditional medical institutions and sufficient personnel to satisfy increasing demand in the city and neighbouring provinces. (Photo: VNS)

At
present, the city has only two public traditional medicine hospitals – the HCM
City Traditional Medicine Institute and the Traditional Medicine Hospital.

Both
institutions were always overloaded because patients from southern region and
Central Highlands provinces flock to the city for treatment, said Tran Huu Vinh,
head of the Traditional Medicine and Pharmacy Office under the city’s Department
of Health.

Three
city-level general hospitals and 12 district-level hospitals had not yet
established traditional medicine departments, Vinh said at a meeting held
yesterday, March 10, to review the implementation of the national policy on developing
traditional medicine in the city.

The
2003-10 policy requires city-level and district-level hospitals to have
traditional medicine departments.

While
this has not happened, private traditional medicine clinics have developed
rapidly, and more than 1,000 such establishments now operating in the city, Vinh
said.

The city
also has around 500 private enterprises trading and producing Chinese herbal
medicine.

Meanwhile, there were several illegal traditional medicine clinics as well as
traders in Chinese herbal medicine that were proving a headache for concerned
authorities, he said.

A
shortage of qualified traditional medicine physicians was also to blame for the
sluggish development of traditional medicine in the city over the last few
years, Vinh said.

He noted
that there were only two universities in the city that were training traditional
medicine physicians.

“The
training of sufficient personnel in traditional medicine is the most difficult
task facing the sector,” said Asst. Prof. Dr. Pham Khanh Phong Lan, deputy
director of the department.

The
department would promote training of traditional medicine physicians to ensure
that commune-level health clinics have at least one traditional medicine
physician, Lan said.

She
called on individuals and enterprises to invest in the training of traditional
medicine physicians. Health examinations and treatment should combine modern and
traditional medicine.

The
department would also plans to upgrade the two existing traditional medicine
hospitals to meet increasing demand for this form of treatment, especially for
chronic illnesses among the elderly, she said.

The
department would also assist the city’s Traditional Medicine Association,
Traditional Medicine Institute and Traditional Medicine Hospital to cultivate
medicinal herbs in collaboration with other provinces, Lan said.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News