Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien on Tuesday told a conference reviewing health activities at central hospitals that a survey showed 40-60 per cent of patients could be treated at lower level hospitals.
"Thus, we should improve human resources and medical facilities at the lower level to ease patient overload at the central level," Tien said.
Priorities also would be given to reforming financial mechanisms for State hospitals, pressing for health insurance for everyone, strengthening the grass-roots health system and human resources and improving health education.
The ministry's Examination and Treatment Department director Luong Ngoc Khue said patient overload still occurred in some key hospitals at central level in cardiovascular, emergency aid, maternity, cancer and endocrine wards where two or three patients had to share a bed due to overcrowding.
At Bach Mai Hospital, bed occupancy was around 200 per cent in the cancer and tumour treatment centre and the mental health or transmissible disease departments.
Khue explained treatment demands had increased rapidly while the country's bed rate, at 20.5 per 10,000 people, was low compared with the World Health Organisation's recommendation of 25/10,000 people.
Measures being considered were to increase treatment areas or decrease administration areas; expand outpatient treatment and examination and treatment rooms for outpatients in order to better manage chronic disease patients like high blood pressure and diabetes, Khue said.
Satellite hospitals and doctor rotation to help medical units at grass-roots medical centres would be continued.
Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Viet Tien said that good care and management for outpatients would ease pressure on already overcrowded hospitals. Hospitals should expand their day-care facilities and home treatment by a family doctor.
"The National Obstetrics Hospital has provided a daily home service for about 100 patients. This model reduces the number of family members having to go to the hospital to care for patients," Tien said.
The health ministry's statistics showed that the country had more than 1,100 hospitals with more than 191,000 beds by the end of 2010. The sector had provided medical services to more than 120 million day patients and more than 10 million bed patients.
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