More than 6,000 cancer patients have been provided with treatment s with a total value of 1.6 trillion VND. (Photo: baodautu.vn)Hanoi (VNA) – More than 6,000 cancer
patients have been provided with treatment drugs with a total value of 1.6 trillion VND
(nearly 66 million USD) from 2019 to the end of August 2023, heard a conference held by the Ministry of
Health in Hanoi on November 8.
Addressing the conference, Deputy Minister of Health
Tran Van Thuan said that drug support programmes have humane and practical
meanings to patients, helping to reduce treatment costs and increase the rate
of access to medical treatment, especially special medicines that have big treatment
costs and have not yet covered by the Health Insurance Fund.
Besides positive implications, the programmes have
also revealed a number of shortcomings and limitations that need to be
adjusted and modified to suit the real situation.
A representative of the Supportive Fund for s – Bright Tomorrow expressed the hope that sponsoring companies will continue to the programmes so that more patients will have opportunities to continue their treatment until health insurance covers the
treatment costs or there are alternative drugs. It also is necessary
to simplify administrative procedures so that patients can participate in the
programmes more easily.
Meanwhile, a representative of K Hospital said that each drug programme
has different administrative procedures and implementation processes are not
the same, therefore it takes more time to complete procedures before receiving
the aided drugs. However, the costs of drugs are still high compared to patients’ ability, forcing many of them to withdraw from the
programmes.
Other hospitals also proposed
the Ministry of Health consider shortening the approval time for
drugs to optimise the “golden time” in treating cancer patients./.
Source: VietnamPlus
