On the afternoon of November 1, the Supervisory Delegation of the Standing Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council, led by Mr. Nguyen Van Dung, Vice Chairman of the City People's Council, had a supervision session on the implementation of the consolidation of "Improving the capacity of grassroots health care - Taking care of people's health" at District 4 Hospital.
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Doctor Do Thanh Tuan, Director of District 4 Hospital, reports to the monitoring team. |
Reporting to the monitoring team, Dr. Do Thanh Tuan, Director of District 4 Hospital, said that the unit currently has 2 facilities at 63-65 Ben Van Don, with a total floor area of over 6,200m2 , including 4 buildings (ABCD) with a scale of 1 ground floor and 4 floors and facility 2 at 2 Le Quoc Hung, 1 ground floor and 2 floors, with an area of 437m2 (both in Ward 12, District 4).
The hospital was assigned 203 beds, the actual number of beds is 145 to care for and treat patients with chronic diseases and underlying diseases, so the bed occupancy rate in the General Internal Medicine Department always reaches 80% (86% in the first 6 months of 2023), while the Pediatrics, Obstetrics, and Surgery departments only reach about 50% of the beds.
The reason why some departments have low bed rates is that most of the medical equipment used is over 20 years old and often broken. The facilities are seriously degraded, with warped floors and frequent leaks; the system of small, substandard patient rooms; there is no accompanying system to meet quality and safety requirements such as gas systems, fire protection, toilets, etc.
The hospital has proactively borrowed over 20 billion VND from the stimulus fund under the city's loan interest support program to purchase blood storage cabinets, surgical hand washing systems, ultrasound machines, gastroscopy machines, 32-slice CT scanners and 10 kidney dialysis machines to serve medical examination and treatment. In addition, because the hospital is a financially autonomous unit, the hospital's operating budget depends mainly on the revenue from health insurance examination and treatment services. However, the current health insurance collection price has not been calculated correctly and fully for medical service costs, causing many difficulties for the hospital in its autonomy in regular spending.
On the other hand, costs that fluctuate in price according to State adjustments, but are not simultaneously adjusted into medical service prices, have affected the source of salary and income for civil servants and employees.
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Small facility, many items seriously degraded at District 4 Hospital |
"The ability to collect enough to cover expenses and have savings for development is very low, leading to the number of medical staff quitting or leaving the unit in nearly 3 years, 26 people", Dr. Tuan stated the difficulties and then recommended: "In order to meet the needs of medical examination and treatment for local people, and for doctors and medical staff to work with peace of mind, the unit has submitted to the City Department of Health for approval to build a new hospital with a construction area of nearly 3,600m2 , with a total estimated investment of 790 billion VND, not including accompanying equipment from the public budget for the medium-term period 2026-2030".
Sharing the difficulties that the medical staff of District 4 Hospital is facing, Mr. Le Truong Hai Hieu, Head of the Economic - Budget Committee, City People's Council affirmed that investing in medical equipment and building new hospitals is really urgent.
“If the hospital is cramped and suffocating due to the small and seriously degraded facilities, how can we ensure medical examination and treatment for the people? The City Department of Health must report to the city and include the hospital construction project in the public investment portfolio according to the medium-term plan for the period 2026-2030,” said Mr. Hieu.
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District 4 Medical Center has an area of about 800m2 . For more than 30 years, it has been a row of level 4 houses, flooded when it rains, and hot when it is sunny. |
Mr. Cao Thanh Binh, Head of the Culture - Society Committee, City People's Council, noted that in District 4, there is a project to build a new district medical center that has been approved by the city with a total investment of hundreds of billions of VND, but up to now the project is still at a standstill. So what is the reason? Has District 4 People's Committee encountered any difficulties in implementing the project?
Regarding the delay in project implementation, Ms. Do Thi Truc Mai, Vice Chairman of District 4 People's Committee, said that the project to build a new center has a scale of 1 ground floor and 4 floors; total floor area of over 7,000m2 , with a total investment of 147 billion VND. Currently, the project is facing difficulties in compensation and site clearance because some households do not agree.
The project to build a new center is one of the medical projects that the Party Executive Committee of District 4 has been pursuing with the city for nearly 3 congress terms. Up to now, the city has just decided to adjust the land price coefficient for construction and this plan is waiting for the City Department of Construction to adjust due to the change in the compensation and site clearance amount from 23 billion VND to 37 billion VND to carry out the compensation. It is expected that by mid-November 2023, the district will focus on compensation and start the project.
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Ms. Do Thi Truc Mai, Vice Chairman of District 4 People's Committee |
On behalf of the Supervisory Delegation, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council Nguyen Van Dung highly appreciated the efforts of District 4 in overcoming difficulties to provide primary health care for the people. At the same time, he shared that District 4 is the locality with the highest population density in the country (42,000 people/ 1km2 ), so taking care of the health of the people in the area faces many difficulties. In the coming time, the People's Committee of District 4 needs to continue to do a good job of advising the District Party Committee to have a separate resolution on grassroots health care; review the current number of public and non-public doctors and nurses, mobilize retired doctors to support grassroots health care in an effective way; promote investment in grassroots health care from facilities to medical equipment, only then can we attract people to come for medical examination and treatment because the rate of people coming for medical examination and treatment is currently very low.
“Is the 790 billion VND to build a new District 4 Hospital enough for the next 5-year plan, or should it be increased to ensure that 5-10 years after the new hospital construction project starts, the total investment will not be outdated and the total investment will have to be redone…”, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Council Nguyen Van Dung concluded.
Doctor Nguyen Xuan Huan, Director of District 4 Medical Center, said that before Resolution 01, the center only had 67 medical staff (12 doctors working/13 medical stations) to serve the epidemic prevention and control work, providing primary health care for nearly 180,000 people in the area. Implementing Resolution 01, the center recruited 4 doctors and had the support of 15 young doctors and retired doctors, thereby helping to reduce the workload for the team of retired doctors at the station. However, due to difficulties in facilities, only 2/13 medical stations organized health insurance examinations and Ward 8 medical station has not found land to build a new one. The center recommended that the city continue to implement Resolution 01 to support more human resources for the grassroots medical system of wards and communes; have a special regime for young doctors to retain this team when their internship period at the station ends...
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