Vietnamese hospitals made total revenues of over VND38.9 trillion ($1.86 billion) last year, up 20% from a year earlier, showed statistics from the Health Ministry’s Health Examination and Treatment Department. Of the sum, 71% came from hospital fees and 48.4% from health insurance, the Dat Viet newspaper reported Feb 24. In fact, the country’s health sector has not yet met quality demand of medical checkups and treatment, the department said, adding that it reports only 22.1 sickbeds for every 100,000. A few hospitals drew up programs to control service quality, thus, medical tests had to be made for many times due to testing results were not recognized among hospitals, the department attributed. Earlier, the government planned to allocate VND10.2 trillion from the state budget for health projects in 2011. (Dat Viet – National Land Feb 24 p6)
