Gradually bring Vietnam’s healthcare industry into international prominence

Many foreigners come to Vietnam for medical examination and treatment

Before returning to Vietnam for medical intervention to lose weight, Ms. Kristy Anne Smith (South African) weighed 116kg. This excess weight makes her life difficult and makes her lose confidence when communicating outside.

During an online search, Kristy learned about Vietnamese health care about its effectiveness and techniques in medical examination and treatment, so Kristy boarded a plane to Vietnam with the hope of a balanced body. Conversely, health improves after losing weight.

At FV Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Ms. Kristy had doctors perform diagnostics and clinical tests to know her current health status, from which a reasonable weight loss regimen was developed.

MSc. Doctor II Phan Van Thai – Head of General Surgery Department at FV Hospital performed tubular stomach reduction surgery for Ms. Kristy. With this method, the bulging part of the stomach will be removed vertically, the stomach will shrink like a tube, thereby reducing the ability to consume food at each meal, thereby reducing calorie intake. body. The laparoscopic method has the advantage of less pain and faster recovery than the previous open surgery method, so after only 5 days the patient can return to normal activities and be discharged from the hospital.

Ho Chi Minh City is considered the leading locality in the country in efforts to apply specialized techniques in disease treatment and health care for people. The orientation of the city’s health sector in the coming years is to become a specialized medical center of the ASEAN region.

In the field of obstetrics, Ho Chi Minh City is the “cradle” of the field of IVF with many famous obstetrics hospitals such as: Hung Vuong Hospital, Tu Du, Tam Anh, My Duc… Pediatrics is also considered is one of the spearheads of Ho Chi Minh City when continuously applying many specialized techniques and achieving proud results. Most prominently in early 2024, the team of doctors at Children’s Hospital 1 and Tu Du Hospital successfully performed 2 fetal heart catheterizations, marking the era of fetal intervention to save children with congenital and open defects. create life opportunities for children, something the country’s medical industry has not been able to do before.

Medical tourism creates more appeal when international visitors come to Ho Chi Minh City

According to statistics from the Department of Health of Ho Chi Minh City, the city has 144 public and private hospitals, 318 medical stations, 196 general clinics, and nearly 6,000 private specialized clinics. In parallel with the number and quality of services of medical facilities increasingly improving, the technical expertise of the medical staff is constantly improving.

These are ideal conditions to form and develop a medical tourism network. According to statistics from the Department of Tourism of Ho Chi Minh City, the number of tourists coming to Vietnam for medical examination and treatment has increased steadily over the years with a revenue of about 2 billion USD/year. On average, each year there are about 300,000 foreign visitors coming to Vietnam for medical examination and treatment, of which 40% of the visitors are concentrated in Ho Chi Minh City.

One of the strong areas to attract medical tourism that the Ho Chi Minh City Health sector is promoting is traditional medicine. The Institute of Traditional Medicine and Traditional Medicine Hospital are the two largest specialized units in the Southern region in this field.

Doctor Do Tan Khoa – Director of Ho Chi Minh City Traditional Medicine Hospital – said that this is a strength in tourism combined with medicine. In traditional medicine, massage and acupressure are their own strengths. If acupressure techniques are applied to the body through traditional medicine, it will help the patient have a self-healing process, bringing a feeling of refreshment. Comfortable, reduces pain and fatigue after traveling.

“We have an extremely rich source of medicinal materials, close to the people, safe, we have stories about traditional medicine culture, stories about doctors, prescriptions, and medicinal places of Vietnam. Vietnam… If exploited effectively, it is difficult to find anywhere else when developing health care based on traditional medicine combined with tourism like Ho Chi Minh City,” said Dr. Khoa.