We have read a lot of articles about how much government takes control in business and ownership in Vietnam so I would like to bring up something different in this post about health care and medication. Vietnamese government health insurance plans are available to its citizens for purchase at around $35 per year. Through this plan, people will be assigned to a specific public hospital depending on what district they located at. In order to schedule an appointment, patients need to come in and usually have to wait for a very long time, especially in Ho Chi Minh City because there is almost only one public hospital for each district and a lot of patients in the countryside are transferred to these locations. They are often overloaded with people. One of the common scene at these places are patients who lay out on the floor, benches and balconies waiting for their turn to be treated or just for an available hospital room. Most people who are enrolled in this plan belong to lower and middle class because it is affordable, but the service is not as great. There are a lot of drugstores in Vietnam that people usually go to before they visit the hospitals. The selling of medicine are not strictly regulated as it is in the US so people can get treatment at drugstores easily.
C Pham says
As we are getting prepared for our departure, all of you are enrolled with HTH insurance, which will allow you to have access to the private doctors and hospitals in both countries when necessary.
Kristina Lor says
Wow, that’s really different from the health care in the US. It’s a little troubling.