Chukwudi Nwobodo (L) is waiting to see a doctor in Ho Chi Minh City-based Cho Ray Hospital’s Foreign Patient Service Ho Chi Minh City is growing into a medical tourism destination as its health care providers receive increasing praise from foreigners.
“I have visited Franco-Vietnamese Hospital (FVH) five times and find the medical services here to be better than at hospitals in Bangkok,” said an Australian patient who has lived in Ho Chi Minh City for nearly seven years.
Under the present trend, an increasing number of foreigners are seeking medical services at clinics and hospitals across the country.
“The number of patients at FVH has increased by 30 percent in the first 10 months of 2007, compared to the same period last year,” said Nguyen Thi Le Thu, marketing director of FVH, which is located in District 7.
Many foreign patients have found healthcare services in Vietnam satisfactory.
“I came here for a medical checkup after being introduced by my friend, another Nigerian. He told me that the medical services here were very good,” said Chukwudi Nwobodo, a Nigerian businessman commenting on healthcare services at Cho Ray Hospital in HCMC.
The 107-year-old Cho Ray Hospital in fact remains the only state-owned hospital in Vietnam to offer services for foreign patients and it is competing against private clinics and hospitals to gain the expatriate community's trust.
According to Huynh Kim Phuong, head of Cho Ray's Health Care Department of External Relations, foreigners living in Vietnam as well as officials from neighboring countries like Laos and Cambodia are coming to Cho Ray for checkups and treatment.
Catering to foreign patients' needs
L. Mason Cobb, chairman of the board of Victoria Healthcare International Clinic, a US-Vietnam joint-venture based in HCMC, said the only real difference between the healthcare needs of Vietnamese and foreigners lies in their habits.
“Americans often have regular health checkups, while locals just want to see doctors after experiencing a specific health problem,” he said.
Thus, healthcare providers targeting foreigners in Vietnam take great pains to develop their health checkup and counseling services in addition to diagnosing foreigners' common ailments.
”Foreign tourists often suffer diarrhea or intestinal diseases,” said Phuong from Cho Ray.
“Many Korean patients come to us to seek counseling and treatment for women's health and pediatric services,” said Thu from FVH.
To address foreigners' specific healthcare needs, all high standard hospitals provide and design a very detailed and comprehensive health checkup package such as Cho Ray’s 16–item health checkup program for those under 30 years of age.
Cheap prices, high quality
A major advantage of healthcare services in Vietnam is their relatively low costs.
Treatment at FVH and Cho Ray, for example, is generally half as expensive as the costs for similar services in Thailand or Singapore.
Yet, Thu mentioned that Vietnamese and foreign patients sought more than just low prices.
“When undergoing treatment at a hospital, patients are more concerned about receiving high quality care than in comparing costs between one provider and another,” she said.
For foreign patients, high quality care includes many things ranging from capable staff and high-tech equipment to flexible payment options.
Yet, these requirements draw a fine distinction between privately-owned health institutions and state-run operations.
Though many private clinics and hospitals accept insurance, the state-owned Cho Ray has yet to link up with any insurance companies.
Foreign patients said this is a great setback since they found it very inconvenient to make direct cash payments.
On top of this, despite being well-equipped, the state-run hospital is often overloaded.
Future services
Despite current shortcomings, many healthcare service providers emphasized that healthcare provisions for foreigners was only going to improve with time in Vietnam.
Cho Ray, for instance, is planning many new projects, including infra-structure upgrades and patient feed-back surveys for both foreigners and locals.
They are also considering ways to extend services to patients covered by insurance
FVH has recently been granted Haute Autorite de Sante (HAS) certification and plans to open a clinic in District 1 in the near future.
In aiming to elevate its international reputation, FVH said it would promote itself in Europe and America as a medical tourism center providing high quality services at reasonable costs.
Smaller providers are traveling down the same road, with Victoria Healthcare International Clinic planning to upgrade into a hospital in the near future.
Reported by Phuong Anh
