 |
Recently, in Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province, representatives of the Health Departments of HCMC and the Southeast provinces of Ba Ria – Vung Tau, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, and Tay Ninh have signed a collaboration agreement for co-working and medical technology transfer.
Accordingly, general and specialist hospitals at the highest level in all parties will exchange medical experience and transfer advanced technologies. They will form a professional network among HCMC’s hospitals at the highest level and provincial hospitals as well as grassroots-level ones. There will be an increase in data connection and integration as to epidemic prevention and control plus medical management.
Another agreement in the aspect of preventive medicine was signed to raise the performance of epidemic prevention and control. An information channel will be established to update the current status in each location, to evaluate disease spreading risks, to closely monitor possible factors that may cause both endemic and epidemic diseases, to share effective or innovative models in disease prevention tasks, and to support one another in emergencies.
Before this, the HCMC Health Department had also signed a collaboration agreement with its counterparts in 13 provinces of the Mekong Delta (Long An, Tien Giang, Hau Giang, Kien Giang, Vinh Long, Tra Vinh, Bac Lieu, Soc Trang, Ben Tre, Ca Mau, An Giang, Dong Thap, and Can Tho City).
Director Tang Chi Thuong of the HCMC Health Department stated that the agreement has two levels. The first one is bilateral cooperation between medical facilities (including technology transfer between hospitals at the highest level and local ones; professional cooperation between disease control centers of all provinces and cities; management experience sharing among health departments) for the development needs of each units.
The second one is the creation of a specialized medical network from grassroots to the highest levels, from HCMC to provinces in the Mekong Delta.
He added that his organization has submitted a regional health project to take care of the community’s health to the HCMC People’s Committee for approval. All hospitals in HCMC are asked to care for patients not only in HCMC but also in the Southern region of Vietnam.
“Every 6 months, all localities make a summary report to evaluate their work so that the cooperation between HCMC and other areas becomes a practical activity to reduce workload for hospitals at the highest level in the city, while the ability of other provinces to medically take care of their own dwellers is improved”, said Director Thuong.
He further informed that based on the successes of transfers of many cardiovascular intervention techniques in other localities, patients in those places do not need to visit HCMC for heart disease treatment like before. It is expected that a new specialized cardiovascular center will be opened in Soc Trang Province General Hospital to be responsible for open heart surgery to interventional cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology. This center receives comprehensive professional support from the Hospital of HCMC University of Medicine and Pharmacy.
In the future, other hospitals in HCMC are going to transfer necessary cutting-edge technologies to provincial hospitals in the Mekong Delta and the Southeast region so as to minimize the number of transferred patients to HCMC.
Director Truong Van Hung of the Health Department of Tay Ninh Province shared that the collaboration agreement in the medical field in the whole Southeast region is a precious opportunity for the provincial healthcare systems to update their knowledge and exchange valuable experience in the aspects of medical management and cooperation as well as satellite clinic model building. This is also a chance to help improve medical services among state-owned hospitals, to professionally form an emergency network in order to answer a higher medical demand of the public.
At present, the healthcare sector of HCMC is going to support 13 Health Departments of all provinces and cities in the Mekong Delta and 5 in the Southeast region regarding technology transfer, human resources training, scientific research, digital transformation, grassroots-level clinic development, state management for private hospitals.
Specialist hospitals at the highest level in HCMC are urgently developing a plan to establish a regional medical network that is able to introduce specialized techniques in the departments of obstetrics, pediatrics, cancer, neurology - stroke, cardiovascular intervention, neurosurgery - orthopedic trauma, urology.
