Nguyen Duc Chung (second, left) Chairman of the People’s Committee of Hanoi, talks to Professor Joel Leroy at an event in Hanoi. (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – Hanoi’s health sector
has improved its service in recent years, aiming to decrease the amount of
money Vietnamese spend on treatment overseas, a figure that currently amounts
to about 2 billion USD annually.
Since
2016, the has worked to attract and experts to
come to Hanoi and transfer advanced medical technologies to local doctors and
.
For
example, the has worked with 263 foreign
medical experts from France, the US, Australia, Switzerland, Japan and the Republic of Korea for academic exchange and technology transfer.
Notably,
the hospital received support from Professor Joel Leroy a top French endoscopy
expert, Professor Bretagnol Frederic and other experts to establish the Hi-tech
and Digestive Centre, specialised in endoscopic surgery and digestive treatment
in 2016.
It was
the first digestive centre of the city with advanced medical equipment and new
technologies for digestive treatment.
Nguyen Dinh Hung, director of the hospital, said the hospital had implemented a range
of advanced medical techniques, such as minimally invasive colon and rectal
surgery; laparoscopic surgery for the treatment of ileosigmoid fistulas;
transanal endoscopic microsurgery (TEM) and natural laparoscopic surgery leaving
no scars.
Besides,
Leroy also trained doctors at Duc Giang Hospital in Long Bien district to
perform advanced medical techniques.
Hung said
Leroy not only trained doctors at the hospitals but also performed difficult
surgeries.
Leroy’s
first operation in Duc Giang Hospital was performed on a 76-year-old man, of
Long Bien. The patient was taken to the hospital with symptoms of abdominal
pain, bloating and vomiting. After being examined, the patient was diagnosed
with a bowel obstruction due to colon cancer.
Under the
instruction of Leroy, the tumour was successfully removed in just over an hour.
The surgery was recorded and presented to the hospital’s meeting room so other
doctors could watch it.
In the
operation room, Leroy guided doctors on how to conduct open laparoscopy and
explained how to perform minimally invasive colon and rectal surgery.
Later, in
recognition of Leroy’s contribution to the city’s health sector and Vietnam,
late President Tran Dai Quang awarded him the Friendship Medal of the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam in 2017.
Leroy is
currently helping train doctors specialised in gastrointestinal laparoscopy for
the city’s health sector as well as doctors for the hi-tech and digestive
centre.
Another
example of international co-operation is 108 Military Central Hospital. Doctors
from the hospital worked with their colleagues in France’s Foch Hospital to
conduct Vietnam’s first lung transplant from a brain-dead donor in March 2018.
The
leading partner of the hospital is now Japan, a country with some of the most
developed medicine in the world. The hospital has sent doctors and technicians
to training courses in Japan to improve the quality of examination and
treatment.
Associate
Professor Nguyen Anh Tuan, deputy head of the hospital’s Gastrointestinal
Surgery Department, said after the training courses, doctors and technicians of
the hospital had learned advanced techniques.
Tuan said
doctors from the hospital now could conduct techniques for treating gastric and
esophageal cancer just as doctors in Japan can.
Challenges
remain
Data from
the hi-tech and digestive centre show thanks to the improvement in service
quality, the centre has received 20 -30 percent more patients each year since
2016.
Nguyen Ngoc Dan, a doctor from the centre, said there were patients diagnosed in
Singapore’s hospitals but they returned to the centre for treatment because of
the reasonable price and to be treated by reputable doctors, he said.
Statistics
of local hospitals revealed most foreign patients chose to be treated in
well-known hospitals, including Saint Paul, 108 Military Central and Bach Mai
because of good service quality and the skills of doctors.
Despite
initial results, challenges still remain, said director of the city’s health
sector Nguyen Khac Hien.
Hien said
international cooperation had only been carried out by some hospitals and
focused on certain aspects, while many other hospitals and aspects had not
enjoyed international co-operation.
He said a
lack of staff with fluent foreign language skills was the major challenge. It
caused limits in finding partners, negotiating and implementing international
co-operation.
He said
the city’s health sector would focus on improving foreign language skills for
medical staff, he said.
Additionally,
the sector hopes to seek international cooperation in building a general
strategy to develop the city’s health sector to improve service quality. It
also plans to construct new medical centres with advanced equipment equal to
centres of developed countries and establish hi-tech medical centre, according
to Hien./.
Source: VietnamPlus
