Described as a potential field for investment, healthcare has yet to
prove its appeal as private hospitals still account for a mere 12% of the total
number of hospitals nationwide.
Vietnam is currently the
thirteenth most populous country in the world with 88 million people, in which
the wealthy and the middle-class are on the rise. In 2010, Vietnamese people
spent US$7 billion on healthcare, which will surge to US$11.3 billion in 2015
with an average growth rate of 10.3% per year, said Economist Intelligence Unit
(EIU).
Meanwhile, the medical service
system is still underdeveloped in terms of quantity and quality. Therefore,
healthcare is considered a potential market for investors.
However, there are now only 137
private hospitals, both locally-invested and foreign-invested, among a total of
1,063 hospitals across the country.
This ratio is very low in
comparison with the regional countries, although the State has introduced many
preferential policies for private investors, said Tran Quoc Khoa, head of the
non-public healthcare service management division under the Ministry of Health.
Speaking at the seminar
“Promoting international cooperation in medical and healthcare investment in
Vietnam” held in Hanoi on Thursday, Khoa said most private hospitals were of
medium and small scale, mainly located in big cities like Hanoi, HCM City and
Danang. Meanwhile, there is no private hospital in remote areas.
Only 28 out of the 63 cities and
provinces have private hospitals, he added.
According to Nguyen Ba Cuong,
deputy director of the Foreign Investment Agency at the Ministry of Planning
and Investment, among the 137 private hospitals, there are only six wholly
foreign-invested hospitals, with a total investment of US$94 million. This
figure has not changed over the past ten years.
There are also 30 clinics
developed by local investors, with total investment of some US$14.3 million,
very modest compared to the demand for healthcare of Vietnamese people.
Earlier, the plan for healthcare
network development until 2010, with a vision to 2020, passed by the Prime
Minister in 2006 was targeted to achieve a ratio of two private inpatient beds
to 10,000 people by 2010, but by then the ratio was only 0.7 beds to 10,000
people.
The goal for 2020 is to raise the
ratio to five private inpatient beds for 10,000 people, meaning there must be
around 40,000 inpatient beds nationwide by 2020, versus 7,500 at present, or
10% of the total inpatient beds in Vietnam.
As such, Khoa deemed the target
hard to achieve without changes in policies for luring investment into this
sector such as personal training, tax and land incentives, health insurance and
social insurance.—
Saigon Times
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