Vietnam EMS Sector Awaits Changes

The government of Vietnam plans to continue the gradual development of its EMS sector, setting a goal of bringing it to the world’s highest standards within the next couple of decades.

As part of these plans, a package of long-term reforms will be implemented, that will ensure a stable development of both the healthcare and EMS sectors of the country until 2030, paying a particular focus to the rise of quality of provided services and the scope of their coverage.

The Current EMS Landscape in Vietnam

Vietnam has a well-developed and stable EMS system at least among other nations in Southeast Asia. The country generally withstood the pandemic and its consequences, being able to avoid massive patient deaths (as in other Asian nations) along with shortages of medical personnel and drugs even during the peaks of the pandemic.

According to analysts, that was mainly due to the generally smart policy, which was implemented by the ruling Communist party of the country during COVID-19 times and which continues to use some Soviet principles in the organization of both healthcare and  EMS sectors, giving priority attention to their affordability and universal coverage.

As the local Viet Nam Newspaper has recently reported,  a priority will be also given to improving the quality of health services and EMS for military forces and people living in marine and island areas.

These plans have been recently approved by Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Trần Hồng Hà and will be part of the existing island health development program until 2030.

As part of these plans, by 2025 up to 40 percent of hospitals and ambulances in island districts of Vietnam will be equipped with the most modern medical equipment and technologies, while the level of quality of provided services will be significantly improved.

Administrative Reform & Increased Training

The current insufficient equipment of Vietnamese hospitals has been recently confirmed by some of the country’s top officials. For example, the Minister of Health Đào Hồng Lan admitted the difficulties, saying that the health sector would focus on administrative reform, raising the quality of treatment, and taking drastic measures to deal with the medical supply shortage this year.

Implementation of these plans will be part of a state initiative to improve coverage with EMS in rural and remote areas of the country.  

For this purpose, the Vietnamese government, led by the Communist Party of Vietnam, plans to accelerate the training of personnel for both the healthcare and EMS sectors and to establish more emergency transport centers in the majority of the largest and smaller cities of the country. This is important taking into account the ever-growing population of Vietnam, which has already exceeded 100 million people, and the ever-improving national living standards. If in the past Vietnam was positioned as one of the world’s poorest emerging nations, then in recent years the situation has changed, while more and more local citizens demand more quality EMS.

Currently, most ambulance departments in Vietnam are still located based on public hospitals, being heavily affiliated with them. The country has also some private EMS services, however, due to their high cost, it has yet not received widespread use as of now.  

Traditionally, public healthcare and EMS sectors in Vietnam are seriously underfunded, which regularly sparks criticism from the local public.

The Vietnamese government is aware of this, considering various ways to solve the existing problems. One such way involves a significant increase in state investments in the sector. A significant part of funds, that will be allocated as part of the planned reform will be invested in the renewal of the country’s ambulance fleet through the purchase of new modern ambulances. According to some Vietnamese media reports, most of these ambulances will primarily serve rural and various remote areas of the country.

Progress So Far

In recent years, Vietnam has achieved some progress in the development of its both healthcare and EMS sectors, which is reflected by the fulfillment of the yearly targets assigned by the National Assembly (NA) -  the national unicameral legislature of Vietnam. That involved the increase in the number of doctors and sickbeds to 11 and 31 per 10,000 people, respectively. In general, the number of doctors and medical personnel, employed in the Vietnamese healthcare and EMS sectors, according to data from local media, has increased by almost 10 times since 1986 to about 110,000 people, while the growth is ongoing. The only problem is most of these personnel prefer to work in large metropolitan areas of the country, such as Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) instead of rural and island areas, where salaries are usually significantly lower.

The government, however, hopes to solve this problem at least partially, by taking measures for the relocation of part of personnel from the largest cities of the country to rural and remote territories through the provision of various incentives and financial benefits for them.

As part of state plans is also taking measures for a further reduction of costs for the local population even though healthcare and EMS costs in Vietnam are already significantly lower than those in many other emerging countries, making it more accessible to the general population.

The government has also plans to reduce the response time of state ambulances to reach the patient, which is usually very slow and may take up to 30 minutes (compared to the required 15 minutes) or more in case of traffic jams. In this regard, in recent years motorcycle ambulances have been in widespread use in Vietnam especially those from public hospitals, which are also equipped with all necessary medical equipment.

Still, due to long waiting times, many patients are forced to go to a medical facility and every ambulance department on their own and by taxi. Due to poorly organized traffic on the roads of Vietnam, especially in large cities, there are always big traffic jams. According to Vietnamese media, local drivers often do not give way to the ambulance, which is why the waiting time for the service often increases. In addition, public hospitals in Vietnam and their ambulance departments are usually heavily overcrowded, and many patients are placed in the corridors.

Still, in recent years the local government has been able to solve some of the most acute problems in the sector, one of them being drug shortage, which was observed in the majority of hospitals and ambulance departments throughout the country during some periods of the pandemic.