Hanoi has 5,728 medical centers, including private and traditional medicine stations. However, the demand of medical check-up and treatment of local people remains high. Local hospitals often face overload. Thanks to better living condition, people pay more attention to healthcare services. In reality, this requires the city to boost the health socialization task.

According to Deputy Chairman of the local People’s Committee Dao Van Binh, Hanoi has worked out a plan to accelerate its health socialization in the 2009-2015 period. Under the plan, it will pour investment into building medical stations until late 2015 to reach the set goal of 20 beds for every 10,000 people. To realize this, Hanoi needs to add 10,000 beds. Apart from this, the city should focus on the quality of medical check-up and treatment. Accordingly, between now and 2015, the city will mobile the socialization capital of VND1.73 trillion to modernize health equipment and build 16 non-state hospitals of 3,350 beds. The city will grant land for 10 private hospitals and complete the construction planning of five hospital complexes (The eastern complex in Gia Lam district, the western complex in Phuc Tho and Son Tay region, the southern complex in Thuong Tin and the south western complex in Chuong My and the northern complex in Soc Son an Me Linh). The capital city will also concentrate on the medical human resources to ensure the basic goals of having 15 doctors for every 10,000 people, three to five midwife nurses per doctor.

Over the recent years, the city has paid more attention to buying and improving health equipment, building ready-to-serve and overtime clinics and high-tech high zones. Many health socialization projects to attract investment in advanced health equipment have been carried out in many public hospitals. The Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Phaco surgery project of Saint Paul Hospital, the socialization project of Hanoi Heart Hospital, the acceleration radiation project of Tumor Hospital, the human resource development project of Thanh Tri General Hospital and the socialization project of Clinic at No. 21 Phan Chu Trinh and Clinic at No. 107 Ton Duc Thang. Non-state health system has developed quickly. As mentioned above, Hanoi houses 5,728 health centers, including 13 private hospitals. The system ensures 30% of the total check-up and treatment activities, helping to ease overload for the public health centers. Health socialization task has gained encouraging results, creating a competition mechanism and forcing health centers to change their operation strategies and improve serving quality. People, including the poor, children and the beneficiary of social welfares, are offered more chances to get healthcare services and a number of these high-tech medical services.

Nevertheless, intensifying the health socialization has faced lots of challenges. The Hanoi People’s Committee said the clean land fund for projects to call for health socialization remains limited. Policies and management mechanism for investment mobilization is still weak and unclear. They do not specifically regulate rights and duties of investors and hospitals. It takes investors much time to complete procedures to build non-state hospitals, which restricts investment for the construction of large-scale private hospitals. Therefore, most of licensed projects are small hospitals of less than 100 beds as well as upgrading accommodation works in residential areas.

To deal with the situation, the city has actively simplified administrative reform and finalized legal document system on health socialization. Hanoi has also injected more investment for the health sector’s human resource, including offering policies to encourage all resources for health development. Furthermore, it has set up a clear land fund and publicized sites for building non-state health centers to draw investors’ intention. The capital city has continued spending VND400 billion for public hospitals’ health equipment improvement between 2010 and 2015. In the same period, it will pour the same money to support site clearance for private hospital projects. Hanoi has applied policies to encourage projects in the areas of private universities and colleges to meet the increasing human resource demand of the health sector.